
Sir Jolrm Johnson^ l>^ 
M&j.-G«A'T.W<rtb defeat* 







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Book J 



SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT 



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THE FIRST 



AMERICAN-BORN BARONET 



A N ID DU ESS 



DELIVERED IJEFORETHE NEW FORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
AT ITS ANNUAL MEETING, TUESDAY, 



JANUARY 6th, 1880. 



S 4 188? 



GEN. J. WATTS DE PEYSTER, M.A., LL.D..F.R.H.S. 



A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY. 



E-2. 



SIR JOHN JOHNSON. 



Horn .'iih Nov.~424 ! 2—I>led 4t/i Jan., IS.iO. 



/TTATO^tjU 



It is well for men to reflect upon two or 
three expressions in the Bible which demon- 
strate that injustice is not always to exercise 
omnipotent sway; and that even the "High 
Song" of Odin, in the "Edda,""was mistaken 
when it sang : 

" One thing I know that never dies. 
The verdict passed upon the dead." 

Whoever assumed the name of the "Preacher 
King" to present his own opinions in the 
Apocryphal book, styled the "Wisdom of Solo- 
mon," uttered a multitude of truths worthy of 
the divinely-inspired son of David, but no 
grander enunciation than the assurance, "Vice 
[Falsehood] shall not prevail against Wis- 
dom" [Truth] ; and St. Paul, the greatest human 
being who, as a fact and not a fiction, ever 
trod this little world of man, promised that 
even to humanity " every man's work shall be 
made manifest." 

It is in this interest — Truth — that the address 
of the evening is delivered. 

Victor Hugo, a truly bright, however erratic, 
mind, has thrown off, from time to time, sen- 
tences which are undoubted sparks of genius. 
One of these is his denunciation of the delusive 
lights of Success. "Success," says this great 
writer, "has a dupe — History!" ft has another 
dupe — Public Opinion ; and this latter is no- 
where blinded by such obliquity, if not actual 
opacity, of vision as in this country ; preferring 
gilt to gold, and bestowing the highest prizes 
on men, who, in comparison with demigods 
like Thomas, are of mere clay. 

The whole of our Revolutionary history is a 
myth. A member of this very society has 
torn some of the coverings from apparently 
slight scratches and revealed festering sores. 
It would be well if there were other prac- 
titioners as daring. 

The effort of this evening will be simply the 
vindication of a gentleman who has borne up, 
like an Atlas, under the hundred years of ob- 
loquy heaped upon his memory, a load of 
which he can alone be relieved by outspoken 
truth. 

The present King of Sweden has just pub- 
lished a species of vindication of one who was 
a grand hero and a great soldier, although his- 
torian, poet and playwright have united in 
damning his memory with faint praise, sum- 
med up in the epithet: "The Madman of the 
North. " Could this opprobrious term be heard 
by Charles the Twelfth, he might exclaim with 
St. Paul, and with equal justice, "I am not 
mad?" for Charles was a patriot King, a 
Soldier, a General, a Man — the latter 
in the -grandest sense of the word — without 



any vice, with manifold virtues. He failed, 
and he fell ; and the' curs that barked from 
afar off at the living lion howled in triumph 
over the kingly creature which Fortune not 
their fangs tore down. 

The royal author — Oscar II. , in the follow- 
ing eloquent passages quoted, doubtless refers 
to the misjudgments of his countrymen in re- 
gard to prominent men who sustained the los- 
ing side in the civil wars of his country, as 
well to those of Swedes and foreigners upon his 
predecessi ir : 

"The past appeals to the impartiality of the 
future. History replies. But, often, genera- 
tions pass away ere that reply can be given in 
a determinate form. For not until the voices of 
contemporaneous panegyric and censure are 
hushed; not until passionate pulses have 
ceased to beat ; until flattery has lost its power 
to charm, and calumny to villify, can the ver- 
dict of history be pronounced. Then from the 
clouds of error and prejudice the sun of truth 
emerges, and light is diffused in bright rays, 
of ever increasing refulgency and breadth. * * 
Every age has its own heroes— men who 
seem to embody the prevailing characteristics 
of their relative epochs, and to present to after 
ages the idealized expression of their chief 
tendencies. Such men must be judged by no 
ordinary standard. History must view their 
actions as a whole, not subject them to sepa- 
rate tests, or examine them through the lens 
of partial criticism and narrow-minded preju- 
dice." 

In this connection old ^Esop steps in with 
one of the remarkable fables which have out- 
lived his gods and cosmogony by over a decade 
of centuries. A lion, observing the sculptured 
group of a hunter strangling one of the lords of 
the forest, growls out: "What a different piece 
of art — if lions were sculptors — would be stand- 
ing on yonder pedestal ! It would be the 
hunter torn m pieces by the lion." 

To no class who have ever lived can such re- 
marks as these apply as to the Loyalists, nick- 
named "Tories," of the American Revolution. 
Modern Italy has sought to efface the remem- 
brance of wrongs done to the Waldenses. 
Bigoted Spain is opening her eyes to the min- 
gled chivalry and industry of the Moors, who 
made their peninsula the world's cen- 
tre for learning; who clothed the southern 
sides of her rugged sierras with luscious 
vineyards ; and made her arid valleys to blos- 
som like the rose. France wails for the Hugu- 
not element which her priest-ridden, lecherous 
King drove out to scatter its seed throughout 
the world, and enrich his enemies with their 
invincible swords, but, far better, their in- 



Sir John Johnson. 



illimitable enterprise and energy. This coun- 
try — ours — is yet unwilling bo accord justice 
to the race or class it oppressed and 
expelled, during the Revolution, because 
to reverse the verdict would be to condemn 
the successful party to a judgment more dis- 
creditable aud deserved than that meted out 
to the victims of fidelity — the Loyalists of 
1776. The Waldenses or persecuted Protes- 
tants of Savoy, under their pastor and col- 
onel, Arnaud, in August-September, 1689, by 
"their thirty days march," and attempt to 
reconquer their native seats, furnished "un- 
questionably the most epic achievement of 
modern times," and won world-wide celebrity 
and glory through seeking, sword in hand, to 
recover their desecrated ancestral homes. 
Why, then, should the slightest breath of cen- 
sure cloud the crystalline memories of the 
Loyalists, who imitated their [reso- 
lution and perilled all, not for gain 
but for duty; not for pay but for principle; 
and all, in this, were eminently faithful, pay- 
ing, in many cases, what Lincoln styled "the 
last full measure of devotion." The patriots, 
so-called, had much to gain individually, and, 
with comparatively few exceptions, very iittle 
to lose. All these considerations suggest a 
direct appeal to the calm thought and honest 
judgment of the generation which has just 
Uved through "the Great American Conflict." 
The Loyalists of the Revolution were identi- 
cal with the Union party in the Rebel (not 
Confederate) States during the "Slave- 
holders' Rebellion;" and the very title, "Loy- 
al men," was applied to the party that sus- 
tained the national government in 1860-65, as 
was, justly, the term "rebels" to those who 
sought its overthrow. 

The father of Sir Johu Johnson — the subject 
of this address — was the famous Sir William 
Johnson, Baronet, Major-General in the Royal 
Service and British Superintendent of Indian 
Affairs. This gentleman was, perhaps, the 
most prominent man in the province of New 
York during the decade which preceded the 
Declaration of Independence. Whether a Jan- 
sen — a descendant of one of those indomitable 
Hollanders who went over with William III. to 
subdue Ireland, and anglicised their names— or 
of English race proper, Sir William was a strong 
example of those common-sense men who 
know how to grapple fortune by the fore- 
lock and not clutch in vain the tresses which 
flowed down her receding back. He opened 
two of the most productive valleys in the 
world — the Mohawk and Schoharie — to emi- 
gration; and with the development of their 
riches rose to a height of opulence and influence 
unequalled in the "Thirteen Colonies." Just 
in his dealings with all men, he was particular- 
ly so with the Indians, and acquired a power 
over the latter such as no other individual ever 
possessed. Transferred from civil jurisdiction 
to military command he exhibited no less 
ability in the more dangerous and laborious 
exigencies of war. He, it was, who first stem- 
med successfully the tide of French invasion, 
and turned it back at Lake George, 
in 1755; receiving from his sovereign, 
in recognition of his able services, 
the first hereditary baronetcy in this country. 
At "Johnson Hall" he lived in truly baronial 
state, and no other provincial magnate ever 



exhibited such affluence and grandeur as was 
displayed by him in his castle and home on 
the Mohawk. 

His greatest achievement, perhaps, was the 
defeat of a superior French force seek- 
ing to relieve Fort Niagara and his 
capture of this noted stronghold 
in 1759. The distinguished British general 
and military historian, Sir Edward Cust, in 
his "Annals of the Wars," refers in the fol- 
lowing language to this notable exploit of Sir 
William: "This gentleman, like Clive, was a 
self-taught general, who, by dint of innate 
courage and natural sagacity, without the 
help of a military education or military ex- 
perience, rivalled, if not eclipsed, the greatest 
commanders. Sir William Johnson omitted 
nothing to continue the vigorous measures of 
the late general [Prideaux killed] and added to 
them everything his own genius could suggest. 
The troops, who respected, and the provin- 
cials, who adored, him," were not less devoted 
than the Six Nations of Indians who gladly 
followed the banner of himself and his less for- 
tunate son. 

Thus, with a sway incomprehensible in the 
present day, beloved, respected and feared by 
law breakers and evil doers, the mortal ene- 
mies of his semi-civilized wards — the Six 
Nations — he lived a life of honor; and died, 
not by his own hand, as stated by prejudiced 
tradition, but a victim to that energy, which, 
although it never bent in the service of king or 
country, had to yield to years and nature. 
Sick, and thereby unequal to the demands 
of public busines, he presided at a council, 11 
July, 1774, spoke and directed, until his ebbing 
strength failed, and could not be restored by 
the inadequate remedial measures at hand on 
the borders of the wilderness. To no one 
man does Central New York owe so much of 
her physical development as to Sir William 
Johnson. 

Wedded in 1739, to a Hollandish or German 
maiden, amply endowed with the best 
gifts of nature, both physical and mental, 
good sound sense, and a mild and gentle 
disposition," Sir William was by her the 
father of one son, born in 174:3, and 
several daughters. The latter are sufficiently 
described in a charming, well-known book, 
entitled "The Memoirs of an American 
Lady" — Mrs. Grant, of Laggan. The 
former was Sir John Johnson, a grander 
representative of the transition era of 
this State, than those whom Success and 
its Dupe — History, have placed in the 
national "Walhalla." While yet a youth 
this son accompanied his father to his 
fields of battle, and when the generality, of 
boys are at school or college, witnessed two of 
the bloodiest conflicts on which the fate of the 
colony depended. He had scarcely attained 
majority when he was entrusted with an inde- 
pendent command, and in it displayed an abili- 
ty, a fortitude, and a judgment, worthy of rip- 
er years and wider experience. 

Sent out to England by his father in 1765, 
"to try to wear off the rusticity of a country 
education," immediately upon his presentation 
at court he received from his sovereign an ac- 
knowledgment—partly due to the reputation 
of his parent, and partly to his own tact and 
capacity — such as stands alone in colonial his- 



Sir John Johnson. 



tory. Although his father, Sir William, was 
already a knight and baronet for service to the 
crown, John was himself knighted, at the age 
of twenty-three ; and thus the old-new baronial 
hall at Johnstown sheltered two recipients, 
in the same family and generation, of the 
honor of knighthood. There is no parallel to 
this double distinction in American biography, 
and but few in the family annals of older coun- 
tries. When they occur they have been made 
the theme of minstrel, poet and historian. 

This was the era when "New York was in 
its happiest state." 

In the Summer of 1773, and in his thirtieth 
year, Sir John Johnson married the beautiful 
Mary — or, as she was affectionately called, 
"Polly" — Watts, aged nineteen. She was 
born in New York 27th Oct. , 1753, and died 
7th August, 1815, at Mount Johnson, near 
Montreal. Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, has left us 
a charming pen portrait of this bright maiden: 
"Returning for a short time to town in 
Spring I found aunt's house much enlivened 
by a very agreeable visitor; this was Miss 
W.(atts), daughter to the Hon. Mr. W.(atts), 
of the council. Her elder sister was afterwards 
Countess of Cassilis, and she herself was, long 
afterwards, married to the only native of the 
continent, I believe, who ever succeeded to the 
title of baronet. She possessed much beauty, 
and understanding and vivacity. Her playful 
humor exhilerated the whole household. I re- 
garded her with admiration and delight, and 
her fanciful excursions afforded great amuse- 
ment to aunt, and were like a gleam of sun- 
/ shine amidst the gloom occasioned by the 
I spirit of contention which was let 
\loose among all manner of people" 
KThe graces which the authoress commemorated 
are corroborated by others. Even after many 
years of trial and sorrow, her portrait bears 
out the characteristics attributed to her. Her 
features are most familiar to the relator, as 
her portrait hung in the chamber occupied by 
him in youth. The elder sister referred to was 
likewise a bright and charming woman, as ap- 
pears from her picture in Colzean Castle, one 
of the hereditary abodes of her husband, the 
eleventh Earl, who built the stately mansion, 
No. 1 Broadway, in this city. The Castle, 
from its commanding site, looks forth over 
the Frith of Clyde, upon a remakable freak 
of nature, the stupendous insulated rock, or 
rather mountain, from which her son derived 
his title as first Marquis of Ailsa. Her family 
had long been distinguished in colonial annals. 
', Her grandfather was of the Watt family of 
"Hose Hill," near — now within — the limits of 
Ediuburgh, and as "of that ilk," had been so 
known for over a century. The old family 
mansion is yet standing, and although de- 
graded into the service of a rail- 
road company, still in its degenera- 
tion and partial ruin attests its former 
stateliness. Her father, Hon. John Watts, . 
Senior, was one of the first men of the colony. ■ 
He had vindicated the rights of his fellow citi- 
. zens against the military oppressions of the 
I day. Nevertheless, the "Sons of Liberty" — or 
rather "License," made him one of their first 
victims. To save his life he became an exile ; 
and an exile he died in Wales, and his bones, I 
far away from those of kith and kin, found a 
resting place in the parish church of St. James, 



in Piccadilly. London, near the remains of his 
sister, Lady Warren, the wife of the famous 
Admiral who took Louisburg in 1745. "John 
Watts, Esq., was an eminent merchant of 
New York, a gentleman of family, of 
character and reputation, opulent and of a 
disposition remarkable for the most unbounded 
hospitality. He served many years as a rep- 
resentative for the city of New York, and 
more perhaps, afterwards, as one of his 
Majesty's Council. He was proscribed by the 
rebel Legislature of New York, his person 
attainted, and his estate confiscated, "although 
he had not been in the country for over a year 
before the Declaration of Independence. 

Had the crown been victorious this John 
Watts would have been the Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor and Acting Governor of this Province, 
succeeding his wife's grandfather, the 
famous Cadwallader Golden. His son and 
namesake, John Watts, was the last 
royal Recorder of the city of New York, 
remained here during the revolution; and 
after it, was Speaker of the State Assembly , 
and Member of Congress. Defeated at the polls i 
by the scion of a family aristocratic in 
sentiment however democratic in politics, 
who aroused the people against himby dis- 
seminating hand bills demanding if freemen 
could trust the kinsman, connection and friend 
of the English nobility, he retired from public 
life. This disappointment did not dim his phi- 
lanthropy ; and to him this city owes one of the 
noblest charitable institutions in its midst — the / 
Leake and Watts Orphan Home. A younger' 
brother, Stephen, "an elegant and charming 
youth," entered the British service; and fol- 
lowing the fortunes of his brother-in-law, Sir 
John Johnson, left a limb and nearly his life on 
the bloody field of Oriskany. So fearfully man- ' 
gled that few officers have survived such a com- 
plication of wounds and barbarous treatment, 
he was saved through the fidelity of Indians 
and his own soldiers, and carried back to Que- 
bec — a long and weary transit. He lived to a 
good old age in England, and left a progeny of 
sons, who rose to high and honorable trusts in 
various branches of the royal service. 

The eldest brother, Robert, married Mary, 
eldest daughter of Maj.-Gen., titular Lord, or 
Earl of, Stirling, who disinherited her because 
she had married a Loyalist, and clung to the 
fortunes of her husband. 

Inheriting his father's dignities and respon- 
sibilities, Sir John Johnson could not have 
been otherwise than a champion of his sover- 
eign's rights. If he had turned his coat to 
save his property, like some of the prominent 
patriots, he would have been a renegade, if not 
worse. Some of the greater as well as the les- 
ser lights of patriotism had already cast long- 
ing glances upon his rich possessions in the 
Mohawk Valley. Its historian tells us that in 
a successful rebellion the latter counted upon 
dividing his princely domains into snug little 
farms for themselves. The sperm of anti-rentism 
was germinating already; although it took 
over sixty to seventy years to thoroughly en- 
list legislative assistance, and perfect spolia- 
tion in the guise of modern agrarian law. 
Surrounded by a devoted tenantry, backed by 
those "Romans of America,"the "Six Nations," 
it was not easy "to bell the cat" by force. It 
is not politic to revive hereditary animosities 



Sir John Joiixsox. 



by the mention of names in this hall. Suffi- 
cient to say, might prevailed over right, and 
Sir John was placed under what the Albany 
Committee chose to define a "parole." Mod- 
ern courts of inquiry, especially in the United 
States since 1800, have decided that such a 
system of paroling is in itself invalid, and that 
individuals subjected to such a procedure are 
absolved de facto from any pledges. 

The Albany Committee had no legitimate 
power to impose a parole upon a dutiful sub- 
ject, more particularly an officer of the King. 
This was certainly the case at any period prior 
to the Declaration of Independence. All these 
events occurred from six weeks to six months 
prior to the date of this instrument. It was 
simply an operation of mob law. The rioters 
in New York, in July, 1863, had just as much 
rightful authority to place under parole a Na- 
tional or Municipal officer captured while sup- 
porting the law and endeavoring to maintain 
order, or even a private citizen opposed to 
these riotous proceedings, as this Albany 
Committee, in a great measure self-constitut- 
ed, to put and hold under what they chose to 
call a parole in the Winter and Spring of 1776, 
an important agent of the crown, exercising 
authority by the appointment and commission 
of legitimate government. 

This address has now reached a point where 
it seems proper to invite the attention of the 
audience to the consideration of the charge in 
relation to the violation of this parole which 
the rebels or patriots, or whatever they may 
be most properly styled, have brought for- 
ward so prominently and persistently to brand 
the character of Sir John. They say he vio- 
lated his parole and fled their lender mercies. 
This common charge of American historical 
writers, that Sir John broke his parole, is 
proven to be "without foundation and 
untrue." The testimony as to the untruth 
of this popular charge, can be found in publi- 
cations on the shelves of the library of this 
very institution. To cite it textually would 
occupy more time than can be devoted to the 
whole address; sufficient will be presented 
to establish the main facts. It may be as well, 
however, to premise ; that Count d'Estaing, the 
first French Commander who brought assist- 
ance to this country, had notoriously broken 
his parole, and yet no American writer has 
ever alluded to the fact as prejudicial to his 
honor. It did not serve their purpose. The 
French held that Washington violated his 
parole: and Michelet, a devoted friend 
to liberty and this country, feelingly 
refers to this to demonstrate one 
of the heart-burnings which France had 
to overcome in lending assistance to the revolt- 
ed colonies. How many Southern officers, in 
spite of their paroles, met us on battlefield 
after battlefield. Regiments and brigades, if 
not divisions, paroled at Yicksburg. were en- 
countered within a few weeks in the conflicts 
around Chattanooga. French generals, pa- 
roled by the Prussians, did not hesitate to ac- 
cept active commands in even the shortest 
spaces of time. Under the circumstances this 
charge against Sir John was a pretext: but 
weak as it is. it is nut true. Power in all ages 
has not been delicate in its choice of means to 
destroy a dangerous antagonist. 

Th»- magnificent Louis XIV. never hesitat- 



ed to imitate the employment of hireling assas- 
sins so successfully initiated by that champion 
of the Papal Church, Philip II. Thus the 
Duke of Alva lured Horn and Egmont into 
the toils which they exchanged for the scaf- 
fold. Abd-el-Kader surrendered on terms 
which were only granted to be violated. And 
blackest of examples, how was the chivalric 
Osceola inveigled into chains. Had Sir John 
violated his parole, circumstances justified him, 
but he did not do so. 

What is the truth of this charge ? 

Not satisfied with putting him under parole, 
the Albany Committee, egged on by the patri- 
ots (sic) of Tryon county, determined to seize 
Sir John Johnson's person. 

It may be stated that "the antipathy" of the 
prominent family and its friends in Albany to 
the Johnsons and their connections arose from 
the Indian trade. The close relationship of ' 
blood never seems to have had the slightest 
power over the gnawing thirst for gain. The 
Johnson influence had been for a hundred and 
thirty-eight years in favor of the Indians and 
against the Albany traders. This was the 
leaven whose fermentation grew gradually 
stronger and stronger in its power to foment a 
bitterness which was augmented to the in- 
tensest degree of political antagonism. 

In January, 1776. a raid was made upon 
"Johnson Hall" in consequence of the affida 
vit of an imposter. This reflected no credit 
on those engaged in it. Then it was that Sir 
John found himself placed under what has 
been styled his parole. From this time for- 
ward Sir John was harassed and hounded to 
the utmost extent of human patience and en- 
durance. Finally, in March, the evacuation 
of Boston by the British gave a fresh stimulus 
to the successful colonists, and the Albany 
Committee made up their minds that the time 
had now come to deprive Sir John of his 
personal liberty. To justify such an outrage 
they nad either to violate their own compact i 
or release him from it. As the party endan- ' 
gered was not destitute of intelligence, it was 
necessary, in order to entrap him, to resort to 
deception. The principal agent in this design 
has left a letter, in which he emphasizes that 
care must be taken to prevent Sir John's being 
apprized of the real design of his opponents, 
and he therefore dispatched a communication, 
which, though cunningly conceived, was not 
sufficiently so to conceal the latent treachery. 
As Van der Does on Leyden wrote to Valdes, 
the Spanish General besieging and trying to 
tempt him to surrender: 

"Fistula dulce canit volucrem, dum decipit 
anceps." 

"The fowler plays sweet notes on his pipe 
when he spreads his net for the bird." 

So Sir John was not deluded by the specious 
words of his enemies seeking to enmesh him. 

Sir John was to be simultaneously released 
from his parole and made a prison- 
er. The officer who carried the com- 
munication discharging Sir John from 
his parole, was the bearer of directions to ar- 
rest him as soon as he had read it, 
"and make him a close prisoner, and careful-! 
lv guard him that he may not have the least 
opportunity to escape." Sir John still had some 
friends among those who were now in power, 
and received intelligence of what was going 



Sir John Johnson. 



on. He exercised ordinary discretion, and, fol- 
lowed by devoted friends and retainers, es- 
caped before the trap could be sprung upon 
him. 

[There was no real semblance of government 
until the States began to organize. New York 
did not do so until 1777. The Thirteen Colonies 
were not de jure belligerents in any wise until 
the Mother Country established a regular ex- 
change of prisoners. They were not belliger- 
ents to the world in the real sense of the term 
until their acknowledgment as a power bj- 
France, and Louis XVI. entered into a treaty 
of alliance with them. Great Britain conceded 
full belligerent rights when it appointed com- 
missioners, in 1778, to treat with the Federal 
Congress. Previous to this the Thirteen 
Colonies occupied an abnormal position with- 
out anything beyond a very limited recogni- 
tion as a legitimate government. Consequent- 
ly what right had the Albany Committee to 
place a servant of the crown under parole? 
Moreover, according to all just principles of 
paroles, the parties arrogating to themselves 
the right to place Johnson under parole, were 
bound, when they undertook to rescind it, to 
place him in the same position as when the 
parole was exacted — the same as to means of 
resistance or escape — and not to revoke his 
parole and instantly and simultaneously ar- 
rest and to incarcerate him.] 

There is, to repeat and emphasize, an am- 
ple sufficiency of evidence in existence and ac- 
cessible in this building to prove that the com- 
mon charge of American historical writers is 
"without foundation and untr'ue" 

Sir John fled, but he did not fly unaccom- 
panied ; and among his subsequent associates, 
officers and soldiers, were men of as good 
standing as those who remained behind to 
profit by the change of authority. Many of 
the latter, however, expiated their sins or 
errors on the day of reckoning at Oriskany. 

Not able to seize the man, disappointed 
treachery determined to capture a woman. 
The victim this time was his wife. Why? The 
answer is in the words of a letter pre- 
served in the series of the well- 
known Peter Force, which says: "It is the 
general opinion of people in Tryon county 
that, while Lady Johnson is kept a kind of 
hostage, Sir John will not carry matters to 
excess." Lady Johnson must have been a 
plucky woman; for even when under con- 
straint, and in the most delicate condition that 
a woman can be, she exulted in the prospects 
of soon hearing that Sir John would soon rav- 
age the country on the Mohawk river. To 
quote another letter from the highest au- 
thority, "It has been hinted that she is a good 
security to prevent the effects of her husband's 
virulence." 

With a determination even superior to that 
exhibited by her husband, because she was a 
woman and he a man, Lady Johnson in mid- 
winter, January, 1777, in disguise, made her 
escape through hardships which would appal a 
person in her position in the present day. 
Through the deepest snows, through the ex- 
treme cold, through lines of ingrates and ene- 
mies, she made her way into this loyal city. Her 
story reads like a romance. People cite Flora 
MacDonald, Grace Darrell, Florence Nightin- 
gale. We had a heroine in our midst who 



displayed a courage as lofty as theirs, but sh 
is forgotten, because she was the wife of a man 
who had the courage to avenge her wrongs, 
even upon the victors, and chastise her enemies 
and persecutors as well as his own. 
All this occurred prior to the Spring of 1777. * 
Sir Guy Carleton, undoubtedly the grandest 
character among the British military chieftains 
in America, received Sir John with open arms; 
and immediately gave him opportunities to 
raise a regiment, which made itself known and 
felt along the frontier, throughout the war. 
With a fatal parsimony of judgment and its 
application, the Crown never accumulated 
sufficient troops at decisive points, but either 
delayed their arrival or afterward di- 
verted or frittered their strength 
away. In 1777, when Burgoyne was 
preparing for his invasion of New York, 
down the Hudson, St. Leger was entrusted 
with a similar advance down the Mohawk. 
Sir Henry Clinton, an able strategist 
and a brave soldier, but an indo- 
lent, nervous mortal, and an inefficient 
commander, recorded a sagacious opinion on 
this occasion, viz. : that to St. Leger was as- 
signed the most important part in the pro- 
gramme with the most inadequate means to 
carry it out. To play this part successfully 
required a much larger force; and yet to take > 
a fort garrisoned by nine hundred and fifty ' 
not inefficient troops, with sufficient artillery, 
and fight the whole available population of 
j Tryon county in arms beside, St. Leger had i 
only 675 whites and an aggregation of about ' 
1000 Indians from twenty-two different tribes, 
gathered from the remotest points adminis- 
tered by British officers, even from the ex- 
treme western shores of Lake Superior. To 
batter this f. >rt he had a few small pieces of 
ordnance, which were about as effective as 
pop-guns : and were simply adequate, as he 
says in his report, to "tease," without injuring, 
the garrison. His second in command was Sir 
John Johnson. 

For the relief of Fort Stanwix, Maj.-Gen. 
Harkheimer. Sir John's old antagonist, gath- 
ered up all the valid men in Tryon county, 
variously stater] at from 800 and 900 to 1000, 
constituting four or five regiments of militia, 
and some Oneida Indians. These latter, 
traitors to a fraternal bond of centuries, 
seemed about as useless to their new associates 
as thev were faithless to their old ties. To 
meet Harkheimer, St. Leger sent forward 
Sir John Johnson, and it is now 
clearly established beyond a doubt that 
his ability planned and his determination 
fought the battle of Oriskany. Had the Indians 
shown anything like the pluck of white men, 
not a provincial woidd have escaped. In spite of 
their inefficiency, Sir John's whites alone would 
have accomplished the business had it not been 
for "a shower of blessing" sent by Providence, 
and a recall to the assistance of St. Leger. As 
it was, this, the bloodiest battle of the Revolu- 
tion at the North, was indecisive. Harkeimer 
lost his life, likewise hundreds of his follow- 
ers, and Tryon county suffered such a terrific 
calamity, that to use the inference of its his- 
torian, if it smiled again during the war it 
smiled through tears. The iron will of Schuy- 
ler, another old antagonist of Sir John, sent 
Arnold, the best soldier of the Revolution, to 



Sir John Johnson. 



save Fort Stanwix, the key to the Mohawk 
valley. The rapid advance of this brilliant 
leader and the dastardly conduct and defection 
of the Indians, preserved the beleaguered work ; 
and St. Leger and Sir John were forced to re- 
tire. On this salvation of Fort Stanwix, and 
not on Bennington, properly Hoosic or Wal- 
loomscoik nor on Saratoga, hinged the fate of 
the Burgoyne invasion and the eventual cer- 
tainty of independence. No part of the fail- 
ure is chargeable to Sir John. 

As before mentioned, the English war ad- 
ministration seemed utterly inadequate to the 
occasion. They had not been able to grapple 
with its exigencies while the colonies were "do- 
ing for themselves," as Mazzini expressed it. 
When France and Spain entered the list, and 
Burgoyne's army had been eliminated from 
the war problem, they seem to have lost their 
heads; and, in 1778, abandoned all the fruits 
of the misdirected efforts of their main army. 
Clinton succeeded to Howe in the field, and 
Haldimand to Carleton in Canada. Haldi- 
mand, a Swiss by birth and a veteran by 
service, was as deficient in the priceless 
practical abilities in which his prede- 
cessor excelled. Those who knew 
him considered him an excellent 
professional soldier, but for administration 
and organization his gifts were small. He 
was so afraid that the French and Provincials 
would invade and dismember the remaining 
British possessions in North America, that he 
not only crippled Clinton in a measure, by 
constant demands for troops, but he was afraid 
to entrust such brilliant partisans as Sir John 
Johnson with forces sufficient to accomplish 
anything of importance. He suffered 
raids when he should have launched invasions, 
and he kept every company and battalion 
for the defence of a territory, which, except 
in its ports, was amply protected by nature 
and distance. Washington played on his 
timidity just as he afterward fingered the ner- 
vousness of Clinton. Thus the rest of 1777, 
the whol ; of 1778, and the greater part of 1779 
was passed by Sir John in compulsory inac- 
tivity. He was undoubtedly busy. But, like 
thousands of human efforts which cost such an 
expenditure of thought and preparation, but 
are fruitless in marked results, their records 
are "writ in water." 

In 1779 occurred the famous invasion 
of the territory of the Six Nations 
by Sullivan. In one sense it was tri- 
umphant. It did the devil's work thorough- 
ly. It converted a series of blooming gardens, 
teeming orchards and productive fields into 
wastes and ashes. It was a disgrace to devel- 
oping civilization, and, except to those writers 
who worship nothing but temporary success, 
it called forth some of the most scathing con- 
demnations ever penned by historians. 
When white men scalp and flay Indi- 
ans, and convert the skins of the latter's 
thighs into boot-tops, the question sug- 
gests itself, which were the savages, 
the Continental troops or the Indians. It is 
scarcely an exaggeration to say that for ev- 
ery Indian slain and Indian hut consumed in 
this campaign, a thousand white men, women 
and children paid the penalty ; and it is al- 
most unexeeptionally admitted that the inex- 
tinguishable hatred of t.he redskins to the United 



States dates from this raid of Sullivan worthy 
of the Scottish chief who smoked his enemies 
to death in acavern, or of a Pellissier, a St. 
Arnaud or a Pretorius. 

Sullivan's military objective was Fort Nia- 
gara, the basis, for about a century, of in- 
roads, French and British, upon New York. 
Why he did not make the attempt requires a 
consideration which would occupv more time 
than is assigned to this whole address. There 
were adversaries in his front who did not fear 
pop-gun artillery like the Indians, and were 
not to be dismayed by a lively cannonade as at 
Newtown. Haldimand had sent Sir John 
Johnson to organize a body of about two hun- 
dred and fifty white troops, besides the Indians, 
and these were rapidly concentrating upon 
Sullivan, when the latter countermarched. 
American historians give their reasons for this 
retreat ; British writers explain it very differ- 
ently. In any event this expedition was the 
last military command enjoyed by Sullivan. 
The Scripture here affords an expression 
which may not be inapplicable. "He departed 

' without being desired." 

Sir John's further aggressive movements 
were prevented by the early setting in of Win 
ter, which rendered the navigation of Lake 

| Ontario too dangerous for the certain dispatch 

' of the necessary troops and adequate supplies. 
The extreme search for information in re- 
gard to the details of the movements upon 
this frontier, has been hitherto baffled. Ac- 
cording to a reliable contemporary record, 

| Sir John Johnson, Col. Butler and Capt. 
Brandt captured Fort Stanwix on the 2d of 
November, 1779. This is the only aggressive 
operation of the year attributed to him. 

In 1780 Sir John was given head, or let loose, 
and he made the most of his time. In this year 
he made two incursions mto the Mohawk Val- 
ley, the first in May and the second in Octo- 
ber. 
There is a very curious circumstance con- 

1 nected with this raid. The burial of his valu- 
able plate and papers, and the guarding of the 
secret of this deposit by a faithful slave, al- 
though sold into the hands of his master's ene- 
mies ; the recovery of the silver through this 
faithful negro, and the transport of the treas- 

! ures, in the knapsacks of forty soldiers, 
through the wilderness to Canada, has been 
related in so many books that there is no need 
of a repetition of the details. One fact, 
however, is not generally known. Through 
dampness the papers had been wholly or par- 
tially destroyed ; and this may account for a 

i great many gaps and involved questions in 
narratives connected with the Johnson family. 
The "treasure-trove" eventually was of no ser- 
vice to anyone. God maketh the wrath of 
man to praise Him ; and although Sir John 
was the rod of His anger, the staff of His in- 

; dignation and the weapon of His vengeance for 
the injustice and barbarisms shown by the 

! Americans to the Six Nations, but especially 
during the preceding year the instrument was 
not allowed to profit, personally, by the ser- 
vice. The silver, etc. , retrieved at such a cost of 
peril, of fife, of desolation and of suffering was 
not destined to benefit anyone. What, amid 
fire and sword and death and devastation, had 
been wrenched from the enemy was placed on 
shipboard for conveyance to England, and, by 



Sir John Johnson. 



the "irony of fate," the vessel foundered in 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence and its precious 
freight, like that described in the "Niebelungen 
Lied," sank into the treasury of so much of 
earth's richest spoils and possessions, the abyss 
of the sea. 

It is said that his second invasion of this 
year was co-ordinate with the plan of Sir 
Henry Clinton, of which the basis was the sur- 
render of West Point by Arnold. If so, the 
former bore to the latter the same relation 
that the advance of St. Leger did in respect 
to Burgoyne. St. Leger's failure burst the 
combined movement of 1777; and Arnold's 
abortive attempt exploded the conception 
of 1780. So that Sir John's move- 

ment, which was to have been one 
of a grand military series, unhappily for 
his reputation became an apparent "mission 
of vengeance," executed, however, with a 
thoroughness which was felt far beyond the 
district upon which the visitation came — came 
in such a terrible guise, that a hundred 
years have scarcely weakened the bitterness of 
its memories. Whatever else may be debited 
to him, it can be said of him, as of Graham of 
Claverhouse, that he did bis work effectively. 

Although one hundred years have scarcely 
passed awaj since the events considered in this 
address, there are almost as conflicting accounts 
of the personal appearance of Sir John as there 
are antagonistic judgments in respect to his 
character. By some he has been represented 
as over six feet in height ; by others as not 
taller than the ordinary run of men in his dis- 
trict. Doubtless in mature years he was a 
stout or stalwart figure, and this, always at 
least to some extent, detracts from height, and 
deceives unless everything is in exact propor- 
tion. The only likeness in existence which is 
in accordance with descriptions, an engraving 
of F. Bartolozzi, R. A. , is a rare one from 
some contemporary work, representing him hi 
his uniform. It is not inconsistent with the 
pictures of him ordinarily produced in well 
known works. These, however, from the cos- 
tume and expression, seem to have been taken 
at an earlier date. 

[Mr. de Lancey, at page (342 (Note lv.). Vol. 
2, appended to Jones' ^'History of New York," 
etc. , furnishes a description of Sir John, which 
tallies exactly with the colored engraving by 
Bartolozzi, in the speaker's possession. 

"He was a handsome, well-made man, a lit- 
tle short, with blue eyes, light hair, a fresh 
complexion, and a Ann but pleasant expression. 
He was quick and decided in disposition and 
manner, and possessed of great endurance."] 

He has been ''described as cold, haughty, cruel 
and implacable, of questionable" courage, and 
with a feeble sense of personal honor. Mr. Wil- 
liam C. Bryant, in his admirable biographical 
sketch, disposes of this repulsive picture with 
a single honest sentence: "The detested title of 
Tory, in fact, was a synonym for all these 
unamiable qualities." 

According to a recently found sketch of 
Charleston, South Carolina, published in 1854, 
it would appear that every American opposed 
to French Jacobinism was stigmatized as an 
aristocrat; and when Washington approved 
of Jay's treaty of 1795, six prominent advo- 
cates of his policy were hung in effigy and pol- 
luted with every mark of indignity; then 



burned. Even the likeness of Washington, at 
full length, on a sign, is reported to have been 
much abused by the rabble. These patriots 
experienced the same treatment accorded to 
the character of Sir John. The procession at 
Poughkeepsie, in this State, to ratify the adop- 
tion of the Federal Constitution, came near 
ending in bloodshed. Any one opposed to 
slavery, when it existed, risked his life, south 
of "Mason and Dixon's line," if he uttered 
his sentiments in public. No virtues would 
have saved him from violence. On the other 
hand, there were classes and communities at 
the North who would not concede a redeeming 
quality to a slaveholder. Passion intensifies 
pubhc opinion. The masses never reflect. 

Here let a distinction be drawn which very 
few, even thinking persons, duly appreciate. 
The rabble are not the people. Knox, in his 
"Races of Men," draws this distinction most 
clearly. And yet in no country to such an 
extent as in the United States is this mistake 
so often made. Old Rome was styled by its 
own best thinkers and annalists "the cesspool 
of the world :" and if any modern State de- 
serves this scathing imputation, it is this very 
State of New York. Count Tallyrand- 
Perigord said that as long as there 
is sufficient virtue in the thinking 
classes to assimilate what is good, and 
reject what is vicious in immigration, there is 
true progress and real prosperity. W hen the 
poison becomes superior to the resistive and 
assimilative^power. the descent begins. It is 
to pander to the rabble, not the people, that 
such men as Sir John Johnson are misrepre- 
sented. Such a course is politic for dema- 
gogues. To them the utterance of the truth is 
suicidal, because they only could exist through 
such perversions worthy of a Machiavelli. 
They thrive through political Jesuitism. 
The Roman populace were maintained and 
restrained by "panem et tircdics." The mod- 
ern voting rabble feed like them — to use the 
Scripture expression — on the wind of delusion ; 
and it is this method of portraiture which ena- 
bled the Albany Committee to strike down Sir 
John, confiscate his property and drive him 
forth ; and carry out like purposes in our very 
midst to-day. 

People of the present day can scarcely con- 
ceive the virulence of vituperation which char- 
acterized the political literature of a century 
since. Hough, in his "Northern Invasion" 
has a note on this subject which applies to 
every similar case. The gist of it is this: The 
opinions of local populations in regard to 
prominent men were entirely biased, if not 
founded upon their popularity or the reverse. 
If modern times were to judge of the charac- 
ter of Hannibal by the pictures handed down 
by the gravest of Roman historians, he would 
have to be regarded as a man destitute of 
almost every redeeming trait except courage 
and ability or astuteness; whereas, when the 
truth is sifted out, it is positively certain 
that the very vices attributed to the great 
Carthaginian should be transferred to his 
Latin adversaries. 

Sir John was not cold. He was one of the 
most affectioiiate of men. Mr. Bryant tells us 
that he was not "haughty," but, on the con- 
trary, displayed qualities which are totally 
inconsistent with coldness. "His manners were 



10 



Sir John Johnson. 



peculiarly mild, gentle and winning. He was 
remarkably fond of the society of children, 
who, with then - marvellous insight into char- 
acter, bestowed upon him the full measure of 
their unquestioning love and faith. He was 
also greatly attached to all domestic animals, 
and notably very humane and tender in his 
treatment of them." Another writer, com- 
menting upon these traits, remarks: "His pe- 
culiar characteristic of tenderness to children 
and animals, makes me think that the stories 
of his inhumanity during the War of the Rev- 
olution cannot be true." 

He was not "cruel." A number of instances 
are recorded to the contrary, in themselves 
sufficient to disprove such a sweeping charge. 
The honest Bryant penned a paragraph 
which is pertinent here in this connection. 
"Sir John, certainly, inherited many of the 
virtues which shed lustre upon his father's 
name. His devotion to the interests of his gov- 
ernment; his energetic and enlightened ad- 
ministration of important trusts; his earnest 
championship of the barbarous race which 
looked up to liini as a father and a friend; his 
cheerful sacrifice of a princely fortune and 
estate on what he conceived to be the altar of 
patriotism, cannot be controverted by the 
most virulent of his detractors. The atroci- 
ties which were perpetrated by the invading 
forces under bis command are precisely those 
which, in our aimals, have attached a stigma 
to the names of Montcalm and Burgoyne. To 
restrain an ill-disciplined rabble of exiled 
Tories and ruthless savages wai^beyond the 
power of men whose humanity has never in 
other instances been questioned." 

The majority of writers absolve Montcalm ; 
and Burgoyne disclaimed, and almost conclu- 
sively proved, that he was not responsible for 
the charges brought against him by the gran- 
diloquent Gates and others, who did not hesi- 
tate to draw upon their imagination to make 
a point. Sir John, with his own lips, declared, 
in regard to the cruelti s suffered by the 
Whigs during his first inroad, that "their 
Tory neighbors, and not himself, were blania- 
ble for those acts." It is said that Sir John 
much regretted the death of those who were 
esteemed by his father, and censured the 
murderer. But how was he to punish ! Can 
the United States at this day, with all its 
power, punish the individual perpetrators of 
cruelties along the Western frontier and 
among the Indians! It is justly remarked 
that if the "Six Nations" had an historian, 
the Chemung and C4enesee valleys, desolated 
by Sullivan, would present no less glowing a 
picture than of those of the Schoharie and 
Mohawk, which experienced the visitations of 
Sir John. He, at all events, ordered churches 
to be spared. Sullivan's vengeance was indis- 
criminate, and left nothing standing in 
the shape of a building which his fires 
could reach. Sir John more than once inter- 
posed his disciplined troops between 
the savages and their intended victims. 
He redeemed captives with his own money ; 
• and while without contradiction he punished a 
I guilty district with military execution, it was 
I not directed by his orders or countenance 
against individuals. Hough, for himself, and 
quoting others, admits that "no violence was 
off ered to women and children." There is 



nothing on record or hinted to show that he 
refused mercy to prisoners ; no instance of 
what was termed "Tarleton's quarter" is 
cited ; and it is very questionable if cold-blood- 
ed peculation in the American administrative 
corps did not kill off incalculably more in the 
course of a single campaign, than fell at the 
hands of all, white and red, directed by John- 
son, during the war. 

As to the epithet "implacable," that amounts 
to nothing. To the masses, anyone who pun- 
ishes a majority, even tempering justice with 
mercy, provided he moves in a sphere above 
the plane of those %vho are the subjects of the 
discipline, is always considered not only unjust 
but cruel. The patriots or rebels of Tryon ( 

county had worked their will on the persons 
of the family and the properties of Sir John 
Johnson; and he certainly gave them a 
good deep draught from the goblet 
they had originally forced upon his lips. 
He did not live up to the Christian code which 
all men preach and no man practices, and as- 
suredly did not turn the other cheek to the 
smiter, or offer his cloak to lum who had al- 
ready stolen his coat. I claim there was great / 
justification for his conduct. The masses can 
understand nothing that is not brought home 
to them in letters of fire and of suffering. 
Their compassion and their fury are both the 
blaze of straw; and their cruelty is as endur- 
ing as the heat of red hot steel. The manner 
in which the construction of elevated railroads 
has been permitted in the city of New York, 
to the detriment and even comparative ruin of 
individuals, shows how little the public care if i 
the few suffer provided it is benefited. Sir 
John may be taken as representing the parties 
who were most deeply injured by such a sys- 
tem. If these blew up a portion of the road 
with the trains upon it containing the direc- 
tors and prominent stockholders, the laws of 
this State, like those'favoring "Anti-rentism." 
and seemingly adjusted for the protection of 
wrong, would term such an act conspiracy and 
murder. Whereas disinterested parties, know- 
ingthe facts, might esteem it a righteous ret- 
ribution, which, although punishable as a 
crime against society, was not without excuse 
as humanity is constituted. 

There is only one more charge against Sir 
John to dispose of, viz., that "his courage was 
questionable." The accusation in regard to 
his having a "feeble sense of personal honor" 
rests upon the stereotyped fallacy in regard to 
the violation of his parole. This has already 
been treated of and shown to be unsustained 
by evidence. In fact, it was proved that he 
did not do so. In this connection it is neces- 
sary to cite a few more pertinent words from 
the impartial William C. Bryant. This author 
says: "Sir John's sympathies were well 
known, and he was constrained to sign a 
pledge that he would remain neutral during 
the struggle then impending. There is no 
warrant .for supposing that Sir John, when he 
submitted to this degradation, secretly deter- 
mined to violate his promise on the convenient 
plea of duress, or upon grounds more rational 
and quitting to his conscience. The jealous 
espionage to which he was afterwards exposed 
—the plot to seize, upon his person and restrain 
his liberty — doubtless furnished the coveted 
pretext for breaking faith with the 'rebels.' " 



Sir John Johnson. 



11 



The charge of "questionable courage" is ut- 
terly ridiculous. 

In the first place, it originated with his per- 
sonal enemies, and if such evidence were ad- 
missible, it is disproved by facts. There is 
scarcely any amount of eulogy which has not 
been lavished upon Arnold's expedi- 
tion from the Kennebec, across the 
great divide between Maine and Canada, 
down to the siege of Quebec, and the same 
praise has been extended to Clarke for his 
famous march across the drowned lands of In- 
diana. Arnold deserves all that can be said for 
him, and so does Clarke, and every one,who has 
displayed equal energy and intrepidity. It is 
only surprising that similar justice has not 
been extended to Sir John. It is 
universally conceded that when he made 
his escape from his persecutors, in 1776, and 
plunged into the howling wilderness to pre- 
serve his liberty and honor, he encountered all 
the suffering that it seemed possible for a man 
to endure. As a friend remarks, one who is 
well acquainted with the Adirondack wilder- 
ness, such a traverse would be an astonishing 
feat, even under favorable circumstances and 
season, at this day. Sir John was nineteen 
days in making the transit, and this, too, at a 
; season when snow and drifts still blocked the 
Indian paths, the only recognized thorough- 
fares. No man deficient in spirit and fortitude 
would ever have made such an attempt. . Both 
of the invasions under his personal leading 
were characterized by similar daring. The 
cowardice was on the part of those who hurled 
the epithet at him. Their own writers admit 
it by inference, if not in so many words. 

One of the traditions of Tryon county, 
which must have been well-known to be re- 
membered after the lapse of a century, is to 
the effect that in the last battle, variously 
known as the fight on Klock's field, or Fox's 
Mills, both sides ran away from each other. 
Were it true of both sides, it would not be an 
extraordinary example. Panics, more or less 
in proportion, have occurred in the best of 
armies. There was a partial one after Wa- 
gram, after Castalla, after Solferino, and at 
our first Bull Run. But these are only a few 
among scores of instances that might be cited. 
What is still more curious, while a single 
personal enemy of Sir John charged him with 
quitting the field, the whole community 
abused his antagonist, Gen. Van Rensselaer, 
for not capturing Sir John and his troops, 
when a court martial decided that while the 
General did all he could, his troops were very 
' 'bashful, "as the Japanese term it,about getting 
under close fire, and they had to be withdrawn 
from it to keep the majority from running 
home bodily. The fact is that the American 
State levies, quasi-regulars, under the gallant 
| Col. Brown, had experienced such a terrible 
I defeat in the morning, that it took away from 
the militia all their appetite for another fight 
with the same adversaries in the evening. Sir 
i John's conduct would have been excusable if 
1 he had quitted the field, because he had been 
wounded, and a wound at this time, in the 
midst of an enemy's country, was a casualty 
which might have placed him at the mercy of 
an Administration which was not slow, with 
or without law, at inflicting cruelties, and 
even hanging in haste and trying at leisure. 



But Sir John t\d not quit the field premature- 
ly. He was not there to fight, to 
oblige his adversaries; his tactics 
were to avoid any battle which was 
not absolutely necessary to secure his retreat. 
He repulsed his pursuers and he absolutely re- 
turned to Canada, carrying with him as 
prisoners an American detachment which 
sought to intercept and impede his move- 
ments. While Van Rensselaer, the scion of a 
race which displayed uncommon courage in 
the Colonial service, was being tried and 
sought to be made a scape-goat for the short- 
comings of his superiors and inferiors, Sir 
John was receiving the compliments, in public 
orders, of his own superior, Gen. Haldimand, 
to whom the German officers in America have 
given in their published correspondence and 
narratives the highest praise as a professional 
soldier and therefore judge of military merit. 
What is more, as a farther demonstration of 
the injustice of ordinary history, the severe 
Governor Clinton was either with Van Rensse- 
laer or near at hand,and consequently as much 
to blame as the latter for the escape of Sir John. 
Stone, who wrote at a time when as yet there 
were plenty of living contemporaries, dis- 
tinctly says that Gov. Clinton was with Gen. 
Van Rensselaer just before the battle and re- 
mained at Fort Plain, while the battle was 
taking place a few miles distant. Finally, 
the testimony taken before the court martial 
indicates that the Americans were vastly 
superior in numbers to, if not more than 
double, Sir John's whites and Indians ; and it 
was the want, as usual, of true fighting pluck 
in the Indians, and their abandonment of 
their white associates which made the result 
at all indecisive for the Loyalists. Had the 
redskins stood their ground it is very doubtful 
if the other side would have stopped short of 
Schenectady. All accounts agree that the in- 
vaders had been overworked and were over- i 
burdened, having performed extraordinary 
labors and marches; whereas, except as to 
ordinary expeditiousness, the Americans, 
quasi regulars and militia, were fresh 
and in fight marching order, for they 
were just from home. So much stress has 
been laid on this fight because it has been al- 
ways unfairly told, except before the court 
martial which exonerated Van Rensselaer. 
Ordinary human judgment makes the philoso- 
pher weep and laugh : weep in sorrow at the 
fallacy of history, and laugh in bitterness at 
the follies and prejudices of the uneducated 
and unreflecting. 

Some of the greatest commanders who have 
ever lived have not escaped the accusation of 
want of spirit at one time or another. Even 
Napoleon has been blamed for not suffering 
himself to be killed at Waterloo, thus ending 
his career in a blaze of glory. Malice vented 
itself in such a charge against the gallant 
leader who saved the middle zone to the Union, 
and converted the despondency of retreat and 
defeat into victory. It is perhaps 
a remarkable fact that the mob 
always select two vituperative charges the 
most repugnant to a man of honor, perhaps 
because they are those to which they them- 
selves are most open — falsehood and poltroon- 
ery; forgetting that it is not the business of a 
commander to throw away a life which does 



12 



Sir John Johnson. 



not belong to himself individually but to the 
general welfare of his troops. Mere "physical 
courage," as has been well said by a veteran 
soldier, "is largely a question of nerves." 
Moral courage is the God-like quality, the 
lever which in all ages has moved this world. 
Moreover it is the corner-stone of progress ; and 
without it brute insensibility to danger would 
have left the nineteenth century in the same 
condition as the "Stone Age." A man, bred as 
Sir John had been, who had the courage to 
give up everything tor principle, and with less 
than a modern battalion of whites, plunge 
again and again into the territory of his ene- 
mies, bristling with forts and stockaded posts, 
who could put in the field forty -five regiments, 
of which seventeen were in Albany and five in 
Tryon counties, the actual scenes of conflict, 
besides distinct corps of State levies raised for 
the protection of the frontiers, in which every 
other man was his deadly foe, and the ma- 
jority capital marksmen, that could shoot off 
a squirrel's head at a hundred yards 
— such a man must have had an 
awful amount of a hero in his com- 
position. Americans would have been 
only too willing to crown him with this halo, 
if he had fought on their side instead of fight- 
ing so desperately against them. 

And now. in conclusion, let me call the 
brief attention of this audience to a few addi- 
tional facts. Sir William Johnson was the 
son of his own deeds and the creature of the 
bounty of his sovereign. He owed nothing to 
the people. They had not added either to his 
influence, affluence, position or power. If this 
was true of the father as a beneficiary of the 
Crown, how much more so was the son. The 
people undertook to deprive the latter of that 
which they had neither bestowed nor 
augmented They injured him in every 
way that a man could be injured; 
and they made that which was the 
most commendable in him — his loyalty to a 
gracious benefactor, his crime, and punished 
him for that which they should have honored. 
They struck ; and he had both the courage, the 
power, ami the opportunity to strike back. 
His retaliation may not have been consistent 
with the literal admonition of the Gospel, but 
there was nothing in it inconsistent with the 
ordinary temper of humanity and manliness. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the people of this era 
have no conception of the fearful significance 
of Loyalty, 10U years since. Loyalty, then, 
was almost paramount to religion: next after 
a man's duty to his God was his allegiance to 
his prince. " Noblesse oblige" has been blazoned 
as the highest commendation of the otherwise 
vicious aristocracy of France. It is charged 
that when the perishing Bourbon dynasty 
was in direst need of defenders it discovered 



them "neither in its titled nobility nor 
in its native soldiers," but in mercenaries. 
Whereas in America George III. found daring 
champions in the best citizens of the land, and 
foremost in the front rank of these stood Sir 
John Johnson. Hume, who is anything but an 
imaginative or enthusiastic writer, couples 
loyalty and patriotism together ; and with 
his philosophical words this vindication of Sir 
John Johnson is committed to jour calm and 
unprejudiced judgment: "Themost inviolable 
attachment to the laws of our country is 
everywhere acknowledged a capital virtue; 
and where the people are not so happy as to 
have any legislature but a single person, 

THE STRICTEST LOYALTY IS, IN THAT CASE, THE 
TRUEST PATRIOTISM." 

" Hopes have precarious life; 
They are oft blighted, withered, snapt sheer off:" 
But faithfulness can feed on suffering, 
And knows no disappointment. " 

NOTE. 

A letter lies before the author of the above 
Address, which is too pertinent and corrobor- 
ative to be omitted. It is from the pen of a 
distinguished officer and one of the most re- 
flecting men of this generation, who is like- 
wise a collateral relation of one of the most 
prominent Continental generals. In it the 
writer says: 

"The more I read and understand the Amer- 
ican Revolution, the more I wonder at our 
success. I doubt if there were more than two 
States decidedly Whig — Massachusetts and 
Virginia. Massachusetts [morally] overlapped 
New Hampshire and the northern part of 
Rhode Island — dragged them after her. The 
Massachusetts people were Aryan [by race! 
with a strong injection of Jewish [instincts]. 
The population of southern Rhode Island and 
Connecticut were divided— more Loyal than 
Rebel. New York was Tory. New Jersey 
— eastern part, followed New York ; western 
part, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was Tory. 
Maryland was divided. North Carolina partly 
followed her, partly South Carolina. South 
Carolina had many Tories. Georgia followed 
South Carolina. Two parties constituted the 
strength of the Whigs — the Democratic Com-! 
munists of Massachusetts, and wherever their 
organization extended, and the [Provincial] 
aristocracy of Virginia, which was loyal to 
the King, but would not bend to the aristo- 
cratic Parliament. The Scotch [Protestant, not 
Papist] Irish in New York, Pennsylvania and 
North Carolina were Rebels to the backbone. 
The Dutch families in New York, the Hugue- 
nots in South Carolina, likewise. The Church 
party, the Germans, the Catholic Irish, and 
the Quakers were loyalist. The Dissenters 
everywhere were Rebels. 



PROOFS CONSIDERED, 

IN CONNECTION WITH THE VINDICATION OP 

sir jroiHiiisr jtohnsoe", zb^zr,t. 7 

Being an Address Delivered before the New York Historical 
Society, at its Annual Meeting, Gth January, 1880, 

By J; WATTS DE PEYSTER, Maj.-Gen., LL.D., F.R.H.S., Etc. 



.A-iPiPiEJisriDix: x. 



Being Chapter IV. "'History of New York 
during the Revolutionary War, and of the 
Leading Events hi the other Colonies at that 
Period," by Thomas Jones, Justice of the Su- 
prene Court of the Province. Edited by Ed- 
ward Floyd de Lancy. With Notes, Contem- 
porary Documents, Maps and Portraits. Vol- 
ume 1. New York. Printed for the New 
York Historical Society, 1879. Page 71. 

In December, 17 75, Congress ordered Gen. 
Schuyler — (in violation of a most solemn treaty, 
entered into by Commissioners appointed by 
themselves, and the Six United Indian Na- 
tions, at Albany, the Fall preceding, by which 
it was stipulated and agreed that the Mohawk 
river should be left open for trade, that no 
troops should be sent into these parts, and that 
Sir John Johnson should remain untouched, 
unmolested, and undisturbed by Congress, or 
any persons acting under their orders, in con- 
sequence of which the Indians engaged to con- 
tinue peaceable and in a perfect state of neu- 
trality; a treaty executed by each 
party with all the pomp and 
solemnity usual with the Indians upon 
such occasions, and afterwards fully and ab- 
solutely ratified by Congress) — to march with 
the Albany, the Ulster, and some New Eng- 
land mditia, amounting to about 4000 men, 
into Tryon county, to disarm Sir John, the 
loyal inhabitants of Johnstown, and to break 
up a settlement of Highlanders then forming 
upon a part of Sir John's large estate in that 
county. The Committee at Albany, to whom 
the management of this expedition was 
recommended, were for some time at a loss or, 
as Schuyler himself expressed it in his letter to 
Congress, puzzled for a pretence to obey the 
orders of Congress by carrying the 
expedition into execution. But Sir 
John having built, some months be- 
fore, a small island in a duck pond 
contiguous to the Hall, a poor, ignorant, illit- 
erate f ellow was prevailed upon by the Albany 
Committee (and perhaps paid for it besides) to 
swear that this little island contained within 
its bowels several thousand stand of arms, that 
the deponent was present, saw and assisted in 
the putting them in, and covering them up. 
This affidavit, which did not contain a word of 
truth, was made, as Schuyler mentions in 
another letter to Congress, the ostensible 
reason for undertaking the expedition. The 
real truth of this iniquitous business was a de- 
sign f ornierl by Congress to rob and plunder 



Sir John, (1) the loyal inhabitants of 
Johnstown, to break up and destroy 
the Highland settlement, and to impress tin- 
Indians with an idea of the amazing power of 
Congress, and to gratify at the same time the 
malice and satiate the vengeance of some in- 
dividual members of that body who were 
vexed, piqued, and chagrined at the Highland- 
ers having preferred a settlement upon Sir 
John's land in preference to their own ('Philip 
Livingston, James Duane and Isaac Low, 
three of the delegates from New York, who 
had large tracts of unsettled land in the same 
county.') This, these selfish and disappointed 
persons had the impudence to call "patriotism." 
The army was assembled at Albany, re- 
viewed by Schuyler, marched to Schenectady, 
from thence to Caughnawaga, and and so on to 
Johnstown. Sir John, with a few domestics 
and some friends then at the Hall, stood upon 
his defence. The Indians appeared as medi- 
ators. They complained of the breach of the 
violation of a solemn treaty so recently made, 
so sacredly entered into by the contracting 
parties, and so solemnly ratified by the 
sachems of the Six United Indian Nations 
and by Congress, the sachems of the thirteen 
revolted colonies. It had no effect, Schuyler 
was in their country, and there, at tLe head 
of 4000 men in arms, articles of capitu- 
lation were at length proposed, liti- 
gated, settled and signed, by which 
Sir John, the inhabitants of Johnstown 
and the Highlanders surrendered their arms 
and ammunition. They were to be exempt 
from plunder, and all the king's stores (2) in the 
possession of Sir John were delivered up. The 
business thus finished, Schuyler began his 
march back for Albany, taking away with 
him all the leading men among the Highland- 
ers as prisoners ; but, stopping in the suburbs 
of Johnstown, he pretended that the Scotch- 
men, hi delivering up then- arms, had omitted 
some leathern pouches and a few dirks (some- 
thing similar to this was afterward made use 
of by Congress to justify the scandalous 
breach of the Saratoga Convention (3) ) ; he 
therefore sent back and demanded 
them. The Highlanders denied the charge. 
Whether this was a thought of his own, or 
the contrivance of some other person, has 
been hitherto undiscovered, but from Schuy- 
ler's well-known character, and the antipathy 
and hatred of himself, and all his connections to 
the Johnson famdy, it requires no great con- 



juration to find out from whence the scheme 
originated. This was all that was wanted. 
It was now suggested that the capitulation 
was broken ; permission was therefore given 
to the army to plunder ; they accordingly pil- 
laged Sir John, the inhabitants of Johnstown, 
and the Highlanders, in which indiscriminate 
plunder none were exempt ; men, women and 
children all fared alike. They even robbed the 
Episcopal Church, destroyed the organ, and 
in their lust for plunder broke open the vault 
in which were deposited the remains of the 
great, the good, the brave old Sir William, 
and scattered the bones about the sacred edi- 
fice. This done, the army returned to Albany, 
divided the plunder, and were disbanded. For 
this meritorious piece of service Schuyler re- 
ceived the thanks of Congress. From the de- 
struction of a large flock of peacocks which 
Sir John had upon his farm, and the whole 
army decorating themselves with the stolen 
feathers, the Loyalists in that part of the coun- 
try gave it the name of "Schuyler's Peacock 
Expedition," by which it is still known (1787) 
and perhaps ever will be. The laurels gained 
in this pious expedition were the only ones 
reaped by the magnanimous Gen. Schuyler 
during the whole course of the American 
war. 

After this, the Committee of Albany de- 
signedly employed themselves in harassing Sir 
John as much as possible. If an Indian was 
seen with a new coat, a new blanket, or a new 
hat, Sir John was summoned to Albany, and 
[on wheels, on worst roads] strictly 
interrogated how the Indian came by 
it. He was sometimes ordered down twice in 
a week. The distance between Johnson Hall 
and Albany is at least forty miles. This was 
vexatious; it was done to give Sir 
John as much trouble as possi- 
ble. He at length grew angry 
at such barbarous and irritating usage, 
and being a man of spirit, was conse- 
quently chagrined at the treatment he was 
constantly and repeatedly receiving from a 
set of common fellows who composed the Al- 
bany Committee, a pack as much below him, 
as they were themselves superior to the 
wolves that prowled the woods. He therefore 
took the resolution of leaving that part of the 
country, and accordingly in the month of 
June following, with a few Loyalists, and some 
steady true friends of the Mohawk Indians, he 
left the Hall and went through the woods 
without pursuing any of the usual routes, 
(4) and safely arrived in Canada after 
a fortnight's journey. The deserts he 
passed were, hi many cases, almost 
impenetrable. Sir Guy Carleton, then 
Governor of, and Commander-in-Chief 
in, Canada, received him with open arms. As 
he was bold, resolute, spirited, brave and 
active, well acquainted with the frontier of 
New York, and hi high estimation among the 
inhabitants, he was an acquisition to Sir Guy. 
He gave him a commission to raise two bat- 
talions of 500 men each, of which he was ap- 
pointed the Colonel commandant. Sir John 
had the recommendation of his own officers, 
and he made a most judicious choice, in conse- 
quence of which his battalions were soon com- 
plete, and principally consisted of Loyalists 
from the counties of Albany, Charlotte and 
Tryon, where Sir John was well 
known, and his honor, his justice, his virtue. 
and generosity held in as much estimation as 
were those of his father, the hospitable old 
Sir William, in his lifetime. Sir John con- 
tinued in Canada during the whole war (the 
Winter of 1776 exoepted, which he spent in 



New York), and behaved with a spirit, a 
courage, an intrepidity, and perseverance, 
scarcely to be equalled. He did more mischief 
to the rebel settlements upon the frontiers of 
Hew York than all the partisans in the Brit- 
ish service put togeth ?r. (5) He was ever out 
and always successful. He was so much be- 
loved by the Mohawks, whose castles and set- 
tlements were in his neighborhood, that the 
whole nation to a man followed 
him into Canada, and attended 
him in all his excursions during the war. 
For this the rebels seized upon then - lands, 
burnt their churches, destroyed their towns, 
and demolished their castles. (6) They are now 
settled in Canada, where they have land as- 
signed them by an order from Great Britain, 
whose King they still call their Father. They 
were always the steady friends and allies of 
England. They have joined her standard in 
every war since the settlement of America. 
Yet the lands, the property of these firm 
friends and steady allies, were by Lord Shel- 
burne's peace absolutely and totally surren- 
dered and ceded to the rebel States without a 
condition, a term, or a stipulation in their 
favor, and this too, after an eight years' war, 
during the whole course of which they had 
taken an active and decided part in favor of 
the British cause, had lost many of their men, 
and some of their principal sachems. 

No sooner had the Committee at Albany in- 
telligence that Sir John was gone to Canada, 
than a detachment of Continentals was sent 
up to the Hall, with orders to make Lady 
Johnson a prisoner and bring her to Albany. 
This was accordingly done. The mansion was 
completely plundered of all its contents. The 
farm in Sir John's own occupation was robbed 
of his cattle, his negroes, his horses, hogs, 
sheep, and utensils of husbandry. His car- 
riages were taken away, his papers of every 
kind (some of the utmost consequence, (7) ) were 
stolen or destroyed, and all his slaves carried 
off. This done, Lady Johnson was escorted 
under a guard to Albany, a lady of 
great beauty, of the most amiable disposition, 
and composed of materials of the most soft 
and delicate kind. Besides this she was more 
than seven months advanced in her preg- 
nancy. She was suffered to go to Albany in 
her own carriage driven by a servant of her 
own. But in order to add insult to insult, she 
was obliged to take the Lieutenant who com- 
manded the detachment into the carriage with 
her, who was now converted from a mender of 
shoes in Connecticut, into an officer holding a 
commission under the honorable, the Conti- 
nental Congress. Thus was Lady Johnson 
conducted from Sir John's seat to Albany, 
guarded by a parcel of half clothed 
dirty Yankees, and squired by a New 
England officer, by trade a cobbler, as dirty 
as themselves, until he had decorated himself 
with a suit of Sir John's clothes, and a clean 
shirt, and a pair of stockings, stolen at the 
Hall. A younger sister, and two children 
accompanied her ladyship to Albany, Lady 
Johnson had relations of opulence and interest 
in Albany, through whose influence she was 
permitted to reside with a venerable old aunt, 
with this positive injunction, not to leave the 
city under pain of death. She was, however, 
not in a condition to leave the town, had she 
been so disposed. She was also given to 
understand that if Sir John appeared 
in arms against the Americans, retali- 
ation should be made and she should be 
the object, and her life depended upon her 
husband's action. What inhuman, unfeeling 
conduct ! And yet these were the people who 



during the whole war boasted of their humane, 
generous behavior, (8) and taxed the British 
and Loyalists as butchers, cutthroats and 
barbarians. 

Lady Johnson being safely delivered, per- 
fectly recovered, and the King's troops having 
defeated the rebel army upon Long Island 
and at the White Plains, taken and in posses- 
sion of all York Island, Staten Island, Long 
Island, a part of Westchester, almost the 
whole of New Jersey, and Washington 
with the remains of his scattered army 
gone to the southward (9), the Albany 
Committee began to cool, and upon her 
ladyship's application to them for permission 
to go to New York, she was referred to the 
Provincial Congress, which was then sitting 
at the Fish Kills, a small, neat Dutch village, 
situate upon the eastern bank of the Hudson 
[in Duchess county], nearly midway between 
New York and Albany. A pass for this pur- 
pose was given her, it was the latter end of 
November, when the weather is in general 
very severe In consequence of her permission 
and pass, she left Albany, her sister accom- 
panied her, she had no male friend or servant 
to attend her, she got safe to the Fish Kills, 
and made her application. It was unanimous- 
ly rejected in a manner infamous, scorn- 
ful, and brutish. Upon her arrival at the 
Fish Kills, she thought it best, prior to her ap- 
plication to the Convention as a body, to applv 
to James Duane, Esq. , one of the members, and 
intercede with him to use his interest to pro- 
cure her permission to go to New York. Mr. 
Duane was an intimate acquaintance of her 
ladyship's father, Mr. Watts, (10) of New York, 
who had been his patron, his friend, his protec- 
tor, and in whose family he had been for many 
years as familiar as in those of his nearest rela- 
tions, Lady Johnson was of course well known 
to him. Duane, being the descendant of an 
Irish father, and having purchased large tracts 
of land in the county of Try on, had been 
particularly noticed, entertained, and most 
hospitably treated and assisted by Sir Wil- 
liam Johnson (Sir William Johnson was a 
native of Ireland), the father of Sir John, in 
the settlement and improvement of his lands. 
Upon the death of Sir William, which hap- 
pened in July, 1774, Sir John appointed him 
his attorney and counsel to transact all law 
matters whatever relative to the estate of his 
deceased father, a lucrative appointment. To 
this being did Lady Johnson (with all the 
meekness of a lamb, with a figure as delicate 
as imagination can conceive, and with those 
bewitching smiles ever attendant upon her in- 
tellectual face) apply for his interest and influ- 
ence with the Convention for leave to go into 
New York. He received her with a haughty, 
supercilious air. 'This genius was, before the 
war, one of the greatest time-servers — haugh- 
ty, proud and overbearing to his inferiors, 
andsycophanticaltoadegree of servility to his 
superiors, or to those who could serve his am- 
bitious purposes, and, if his own brother could 
be believed, not over honest. But this might 
be owing to his profession — he was a lawyer. 
Being married in the Livingston family, dis- 
appointed in an application to Lord Dunmore, 
and in another to Gen. Try on, to be made one 
of his Majesty's council, and his determina- 
tion to be a great man, all combined to hurry 
him down the stream of rebellion. Upon the 
evacuation of New York in 1783, he 
was made Mayor of the city. The 
Marquis de Chastellux, speaking of 
him, says he is civiL jovial, and drinks with- 
out repugnance. 1 She [Lady Johnson], with 
a tongue equal to that of a siren, with an in- 



fant in her arms, recounted the favors he had 
received, and the great intimacy that had for 
many years subsisted between him, her father, 
her late father-in-law, and her husband. He 
scarcely asked her to sit down, treated her 
with incivility and impoliteness, and, with a 
countenance as black and grim us Milton's 
Devil, told her, "that private friendship must 
be sacrificed to the good of the public, and no 
favors were to be expected of him." What 
base ingratitude! 

Upon the rejection of Lady Johnson's appli- 
cation by the Provincial Congress, they gave 
her liberty to take up her residence with the 
family of David Johnson, Esq., an old ac- 
quaintance of her father's, who lived at the 
Nine Partners, Patent in Dutchess county,"(ll) 
about sixteen miles to the east of the Hudson, 
or with that of Cadwallader Golden, Esq., an- 
other of her father's friends, who lived at 
Coldenham, in Ulster county, about twelve 
miles distant from the western shore of the 
Hudson. The latter was her choice. She was 
given, however, to understand, that if she at- 
tempted to escape, and should be retaken, she 
should immediately be treated with the ut- 
most severity ; or if Sir John appeared in 
arms and entered the State as an enemy, she 
must expect to be made the victim of retalia- 
tion for his conduct. 

Is it possible that anything could be more 
cruel in a Christian country ? Savages and 
barbarians would even shudder at the thought. 
Yet these were the people who called themselves 
the lambs of God, asserted they were contend- 
ing in a righteous cause and fighting for the 
rights of mankind. Lady Johnson possessed 
great resolution. She was not terrified with 
their threats. She removed to Mr. Colden's, 
and the first thing she did was to hire a faith- 
ful, honest loyalist to go to Johnstown with a 
message to an honest, trusty loyal tenant of 
Sir John's, with directions to be with her at 
such an hour with a sleigh and a pair of good 
horses. It was now the middle of January 
and the whole country covered with snow. 
Lady Johnson and her sister procured dresses, 
by way of disguise, and appeared in the 
characters of common country wenches. The 
messenger was true to his trust, and the tenant 
appeared at the appointed time. Lady John- 
son and her sister set out in the evening, 
travelled all night, and the next morning ar- 
rived safe at Paulus Hook, a British post 
upon the west side of the North river and 
directly opposite to New York. Here Sir 
John met her and conducted her to the city, 
since which they have never parted. She 
went with him the next Spring from New 
York to Canada, has been twice with him 
to England and twice returned to Can- 
ada, where they are now (1787) living in 
splendor, affluence, and reputation, and her 
ladyship the very idol of the people. Sir John 
is His Majesty's Superintendent of Indian 
Affairs in that part of the country. 

A particular anecdote must be here related. 
Lady Johnson and her sister, disguised as 
before mentioned, stopped upon the road at a 
public-house for a little refreshment. In this 
house there happened to be a party of rebels, 
and among them a Major Abeel, of the Conti- 
nentals, who had served Lady Johnson's 
father in the character of a clerk for 
many years, and was as well acquainted with 
her as with a sister of his own. Her 
Ladyship recognized him the moment she 
entered the room, and he steadily fixed 
his eyes on her. And sitting for some time, 
the Major says: "Your face, Madam, seems 
very familiar to me, I must have seen you 



somewhere." Lady Johnson with great cool- 
ness and an amazing presence of mind, an- 
swered : ' 'Very like, I lived in New York be- 
fore the war, my name is Kip. I left it upon 
the defeat of our army on Long Island, have 
been in the country ever since, and am going 
into Jersey to see some relations that live at 
Newark. " The Major asked no further ques- 
tions, and her ladyship soon took herself 
away. Whether Abeel knew her or not is un- 
certain. She has a countenance not easily to 
be disguised. If he did really know 
her, and concealed his knowledge out 
of friendship to , her father, herself, 
and family, he has great merit, for had he 
taken and returned her to the Provincial 
Congress, he woidd have been most gener- 
ously rewarded; Out as there was, dur- 
ing the war, so little generosity and 
friendship shown by rebels to loyalists, I sus- 
pect be was fairly deceived by a story told 
by her Ladyship with so much coolness and 
deliberation. [Compare Maj. Abeel's conduct 
with that of James Duane.] 

Note XXX. Ibid— Page 578, etc. 

"SCHUYLER'S EXPEDITION TO JOHNSTOWN — 

HOW IT ORIGINATED AND WAS 

CARRIED OUT." 

On the 30th of December, 1775, a special 
Committee of Investigation reported to the 
Continental Congress that "they have receiv- 
ed intelligence that a quantity of arms and 
ammunition and other articles are concealed 
in Tryon county, in which also there are 
several Tories armed and enlisted in the 
enemy's service ; whereupon, 

"Resolved, That the said Committee be 
directed to communicate the intelligence to 
Gen. Schuyler, and in the name of Congress 
desire him to take the most speedy and effect- 
ual measures for securing the said arms and 
military stores, and for disarming the said 
Tories and apprehending their chiefs. "* ^Jour- 
nals of Congress, 1775, p. 310.) 

In obedience to this Resolution Schuyler 
proceeded as stated in the text, being com- 
pelled by the want of troops to consult the 
Albany Committee how to raise them, first, 
however, swearhig that body to secrecy. A let- 
ter of Isaac Paris (12), Chairman of the Tryon 
County Committee, enclosing an affidavit of 
Jonathan French, Jr., that & woman told him 
Sir John Johnson was fortifying his house, 
and had 300 Indians near it, both subsequently 
proved false, arrived during the consultations, 
and these allegations "were made the osten- 
sible reasons of raising the militia," as Schuy- 
ler himself states in his "narrative of that lit- 
tle excursion." as he calls the expedition, from 
which the following citations are taken, and 
so excited were the people by them and 
so great was their effect,that the General says. 
"I had very near if not quite three thousand 
men, including nine hundred of the Tryon 
county militia." The author's statement of 
4000 men as his force is, therefore, erroneous, 
as well as Bancroft's that he had 2000. Schuy- 
ler had also an affidavit of one Conner that he 
was present and saw arms secreted in an 
island in Sir John's duck-pond. This was 
merely the Cayadutta Creek, running at the 
foot of the hill on which Johnson Hall stands, 
which had been dammed and made into an 
ornamental fish-pond by Sir William Johnson 
sonie years before his death. 

The Indians living at Caughnawaga, on the 
Mohawk, five miles from Johnson Hall, were 
alarmed by the approach of the armed force, 
and a delegation met Schuyler at Schenectady 
on the 16th of January, when Abraham, the 



Mohawk chief, made him a speech, remon- 
strating against the invasion as a breach of 
the treaty of August, 1755, and stating that 
at Johnson Hall, Sir John was not fortifying, 
and that all things there remained as they 
were in the lifetime of Sir William; that 
they had asked him not to be the aggressor, 
and assured him if he was, they would pay 
no more attention to him; that "if our broth- 
ers of the United Colonies were the aggres- 
sors, we should treat them in the same man- 
ner." 

"This is what we told Sir John, as we look 
upon ourselves to be the mediators between 
both parties." "To which Sir John replied 
that we knew his disposition very well, and 
that he had no mind to be the aggressor ; he 
assured us he would not be the aggressor, but 
if the people came up to take away his life, he 
would do as well as he could, as the law of 
nature justified every man to stand in his own 
defence." 

"We beg of you, brothers," Abraham con- 
tinued, "to remember the engagement that 
was made with the twelve United Colonies at 
our inteiwiew last Summer, as we then en- 
gaged to open the path of peace and to keep it 
undefiled from blood ; at the same time some- 
thing of a different nature made its apj:>ear- 
ance. You assured us, brothers, that 
if any were found in our neigh- 
borhood inimical to us, that you would con- 
sider them as enemies. The Sue Nations then 
supposed that the son of Sir William was 
pointed at by that expression. We then de- 
sired particularly that he might not bo in- 
jured, as it was not in his power to injure the 
cause, and that therefore he might not be mo- 
lested. 

He also said that some of their warriors 
were alarmed and ready to take their arms, 
as they considered the unfriendly disposition 
of the Colonies verified, and would think 
themselves deceived if this military force 
came into their country, and that 
they were determined to be present 
at the interview with Sir John; that 
he, Abraham, had persuaded them "to sit still 
for two days," till he could go and inquire into 
the truth of the matter, and bring them an 
answer. Gen. Schuyler replied that he did 
not mean to interfere with the Six Nations ; 
that he had "full proofs that many people in 
Johnstown, and the neighborhood thereof, 
have for a considerable time past made prep- 
arations to carry into execution the wicked 
designs of the King's evil counsellors ; that it 
was by the special order of Congress that he 
was marching up to keep the path open, and 
to prevent the people of Johnstown from cut- 
ting off the communication between us and 
our brethren of the Six Nations and our other 
brethren living on the river;" that he 
would " send a letter to Sir John, inviting him 
to meet us on the road between this place and 
his house, which, if he does, we make no doubt 
that everything will be settled in an amicable 
manner;" and that "he wished their warriors 
would be present at the interview." 

Sir John and some of his Scotch tenants met 
Schuyler about sixteen miles from Schenectady, 
pursuant to Schuyler's written request, dated 
Schenectady, January 16, 1776, in which, after 
stating that information had been received 
" that designs of the most dangerous tendency 
to the rights, liberties, properties, and ereu 
the lives of his Majesty's faithful 
subjects (13) in America, who are op- 
posed to the unconstitutional measures of his 
ministry, have been formed in the County of 
Tryon," and that he had been ordered by Con- 



cress to march troops, "to contravene these 
dangerous designs ;" and wishing to obey his 
orders so that no blood may be shed, he invites 
him to meet at anj r place on his way to Johns- 
town ; and tlmt he and his attendants should 
pass and repass in safety to his abode upon 
"my word and honor." The letter was sent 
by Rutgers Bleecker and Henry Glen, and 
closes thus: I3P" "You will please to assure 
Lady Johnson that whatever may be the result 
of what is now in agitation, she may rest per- 
fectly satisfied that no indignity will be 
offered her." ^JgH 

Lady Johnson was a first cousin once re- 
moved of Gen. Schuyler, being Mary, a 
daughter of Hon. John Watts, of New York, 
by his wife, Anne (de Lancey), youngest 
daughter of Etienne de Lancey (the first of 
this name in America), whose wife and Gen. 
Schuyler's mother were sisters, both being 
daughters of Stephanus van Cortlandt. 

The first terms proposed by Schuyler, and 
the counter terms proposed by Sir John, were 
rejected by each. Schuyler then wrote John- 
son to reconsider the matter, and gave him 
until twelve at night on September [must be 
January — as above] 18 for an answer. 

After the letter was sent, the Indian sachems 
called upon Schuyler, stated that Sir Jonn had 
told them the contents of all the terms offered, 
and said that "he onlymeant to guard himself 
from insults by riotous people; that he had no 
unfriendly intentions against the country," 
and begged that his terms might be accepted. 
Schuyler declined, and told the Indians that if 
he did not comply by twelve that night he 
"would force him," and whoever assisted him, 
to a compliance. " They then asked Schuyler 
in case his answer was not satisfactory, to give 
hirh till four a. m., "that they might have 
time to go to him and shake his head (as they 
expressed it), and bring him to his senses," 
which was agreed to. 

This original, or rather aboriginal, opera- 
tion, proved not to be necessary, for at the 
hour first appointed, twelve at night, Sir 
John's answer came. The next morning 
Schuyler assented to certain modifications 
proposed, and the affair was settled without 
further difficulty. 

On the 19th the arms and military stores, 
"a much smaller quantity than T expected," 
says Schuyler, "were given up." On the 20th 
the Highlanders, "between two ami three 
hundred," marched to the front and grounded 
their arms, which were immediately secured. 
Schuyler, also, chose six of then number as 
hostages for the rest, pursuant to the terms of 
the treaty, the chief of whom was Allan Mc- 
Donald. The same afternoon several field 
officers and Conner, the . maker of 
the affidavit before mentioned, were 
sent to the island in the duck- 
pond, which turned out to be only twenty by 
twenty-eight feet in size, and about three feet 
above the water. When they cleared off the 
snow they found that the ground had not 
been broken up. They dug down to the wa- 
ter's edge, however, and probed the ground 
with sticks, swords and other instruments, 
but they found nothing. The whole charge 
was false, and tin" officers unanimously re- 
ported that they were convinced Conner was 
an impostor, and he was confined at once 
as such. 

The evening of the 20th Schuyler returned 
to Caughnawaga; the next day he wrote to 
Sir John that many of the Scotchmen had 
broadswords and dirks which had not been 
delivered up, either from inattention or 
wilful omission, and that they must comply 



with the treaty; adding: "I shall, how- 
ever, expect an eclaircissement on this 
subject, and beg that you and Mr. 
McDonald will give it me as soon as may 
be," and immediately marched back to Johns- 
town. 

As to whether there was any "eclaircisse- 
ment," or any answer or action at all, Schuy- 
ler's report is entirely silent. What they did 
after they got back to Johnstown, as described 
in the text, the pillaging, etc., is thus men- 
tioned: "I have had much anxiety and an in- 
credible deal of trouble to prevent so large a 
body of men collected on a sudden, with so 
little discipline, from running into excesses; I 
am, however, happy that nothing material; 
has happened that can reflect disgrace on our 
cause." 

On 2d Feb., 1776, Schuyler's narrative 
was received by the Continental Congress^ and 
on the 5th of the same month they passed res- 
olutions of thanks for the service, (Journals of 
Congress, 1776, pp. 47, 48, 40,) and that his 
narrative be published in the newspapers. 
The curious reader will find it at length in the 
fourth series of Force's Archives, vol. iv., 
pages 818 to 829. 

It may be stated that the "antipathy," as 
the text calls it. of Gen. Schuyler and his 
friends in Albany to the Johnson family, 
notwithstanding the blood relationship be- 
tween him and Lady Johnson above men- 
tioned, arose from the Indian trade. The 
Johnson influence was always, from the 
first arrival of Sir William in Amer- 
ica, in 1738, in favor of the Indians and 
against the Albany traders, many of whom 
were the friends and political supporters of 
Schuyler, and some of them his connections. 
Fi »r the condition of Johnson's tomb as found 
in 1862, see [Ibid.] Vol. II., page 644. 

HISTORY OF NEW YORK DURING THE REVOLU- 
TIONARY WAR. 
NOTE XXXI. 
BY THOMAS JONES, PAGE - r iN:i. 

Why Sir John Johnson left Johnson Hall 
— Released from his Parole by Schuyler — 
Lady Johnson Arrested and kept as a Host- 
•age — Action of Schuyler, Washington, Lady 
Johnson and the New York Convention — Their 
Personal and Official Statements — The Births, 
Marriage and Deaths of Sir John and Lady 
Johnson. 

See volume I., pages 74-81 (as above). 

On the 6th March, 1776, one John Collins, 
a Justice of the Peace, in Tryon county, en- 
gaged in raising a company for the Ameri- 
can service, took the affidavit of one Asa 
Chadwick, stating that Sir John Johnson 
told him he bad heard how Collins was cm- 
ployed, which would be worse for them 
all; that he had sent for the Indians, 
and they would be down on thf back 
settlements in six weeks and scalp a great 
many people. This was sent to the Al- 
bany Committee (Force's Am. Archives, 4th 
Series, vol. v., p. 195). It was subsequently 
found to be as baseless as those charging him 
with fortifying Johnson Hall and concealing 
arms on an island in his fishpond (See 
note xxx. above.) 

True or false, the Committee cautiously, on 
March 11th, 

"Resolved, That as Sir John lives out of the 
county, and is at present under parole to Gen. 
Schuyler, the said affidavit be laid before him 
to act thereupon, as he shall see convenient." 

Gen. Schuyler, by letter of the 12th, or- 
dered Sir John to Albany to meet his accusers 



and answer the charge (Force, Vol. V., p. 
196). 

On the 19th, Schuyler wrote the President 
of Congress : 

"Sir John Johnson was this day in town 
agreeable to my request; but his accusers did 
not appear. He avows that he has reported 
that the Indians have thrown out threats that 
they would fall upon us; and says it is notori- 
ous to many of our friends in the County of 
Tryon that they have repeatedly done it. 

"I am just now informed that the Indians 
are already on their way to this place to hold 
a conference with us. We shall be greatly 
distressed, as we have nothing to give them." 
(Force, [Am. Arch.]416. The affidavits of vari- 
ous persons, given in the same volume, V., pp. 
770, 771, prove the truth of Sir John's state- 
ment of the general notoriety of the Indian 
threats ifi Tryon county). 

While these proceedings were being had, 
the American army was still before Boston. 
The above letter of Schuyler was written only 
two days after its evacuation, and before the 
event was known in Albany. 

The driving of the British army from Boston 
at once stimulated the zeal of the American 
committees and officers throughout the colo- 
nies against their opponents. 

Schuyler felt the pressure of the Albany 
Committee, and determined to seize Sir John 
Johnson's person. As he held his parole, 
given in the preceding January, this could 
only be done by violating it, or releasing him 
from it. On May 10, just nineteen days after 
the above interview at Albany, Schuyler 
wrote Sir John, from Saratoga, that he had 
no doubt of his hostile intentions against the 
country, and "it is therefore necessary for the 
safety of the inhabitants and the weal of the 
country, that I should put it out of your power 
to embroil it in domestic confusion, and have, 
therefore, ordered you a close prisoner, and 
sent down to Albany, to be thence conveyed to 
his Excellency, Gen. Washington, thereby dis- 
charging ?/<>» from your parole.'''' (Force, 
vol. VI., Fourth Series, 643. The italics are 
the editor's.) Had Schuyler really believed 
the affidavits and information received from 
William Duer against Sir John, mentioned 
in the following letter, he never would have 
thus formally released him from his parole, 
for, if true, it was entirely unnecessary. 

The letter to Sir John was so be delivered 
by Col. Dayton, the officer in command of 
the troops sent to Johnstown, who was direct- 
ed to arrest him "as soon as he had read it." 
He was to be released from his parole, and 
made prisoner, simultaneously. 

Schuyler's plan is thus given by himself in "a 
letter to Gen. Sullivan. (Force, 641. The 
italics are the editor's — E. F. de L.) 

"Saratoga, May 14, 1776. 

"Dear Sir. — Some time ago an information 
on oath was lodged with me against Sir John 
Johnson, charging him with hostile intentions 
against us; this has since been confirmed by 
further information from persons whom I am 
not at liberty to name. 

"Judge Duer, who has taken one of the ex- 
aminations, and was present at another, will 
inform you more particularly. This has in- 
duced the enclosed order to Col. Dayton, 
whom I beg you will detach with three hun- 
dred of his most alert men to execute this 
business, and to order the Commissary-Gen- 
eral to furnish him with six days' provisions 
and carriages to convey it, and to prepare to 
send more if there should be occasion. It 
is necessary that Sir John Johnson should 
not be apprised of their real design, and I 



have, therefore, written him on the subject 
of removing the Highlanders from Tryon 
county, which you will please to peruse and 
seal, and send to him by express the soonest 
possible. 

"I am, &c, 
"Philip Schuyler. 
"To Gen. Sullivan." 

This ruse of removing the Highlanders, as 
the sequel shows, ruined the wily plan. 

Schuyler on the 14th wrote Lady Johnson, 
that he must secure Sir John's person, and 
that, if she accompanied her husband, all due 
care and attention should be paid her; but if 
Sir John wished her to remain, an officer's 
guard would be left, "to prevent any insult to 
yourself or your familv." (Force, 4th Series, 
Vol. VI. p. 643.) 

On the 18th, Sir John wrote from Johnson 
Hall to Gen. Scnuyler: "Sir, on my return 
from Fort Hunter, yesterday, I received your 
letter (Force, 692) by express, acquainting me 
that the elder McDonald had desired to have 
all the clan of his name in the county 
of Tryon removed and subsisted. I 
know none of that clan but such 
as are my tenants, and have been 
for near two years supported by me with every 
neceasity, by which means they have contract- 
ed a debt of near two thousand pounds, which 
they are in a likely way to discharge if left in 
peace. As they are under no obligation to Mr. 
McDonald, they refuse to comply with his ex- 
traordinary request; therefore, beg there may 
be no troops sent to conduct them to Albany, 
otherwise they will look upon it as a total 
breach of the treaty agreed to at Johnstown. 
(In January, 1776, as stated in note xxx., Mc- 
Donald was one of the six prisoners sent under 
the treaty to Congress as hostages for the High- 
landers at that time.) Mrs. McDonald showed 
me a letter from her husband written since he 
applied to Congress for leave to return to their 
families, in which he mentions he was told by the 
Congress it depended entirely upon you ; he 
then desired that their families might be 
brought down to them, but never mentioned 
anything with regard to moving my tenants 
from hence, as matters he had no right to 
treat of. (14). Mrs. McDonald requested that I 
would inform you that neither herself nor any 
of the other families would choose to go 
down." (Force, Ibid., 644). 

Four days previously, however, c m the 14th 
of May, 1776. Schuyler's letters on this busi- 
ness, except that of the 10th to Sir John, are 
dated May 14, 1776, and with Dayton's report, 
were sent by him to Washington in a letter of 
May. 81, 1776, the very letter, oddly enough, 
in which he says that about 100 persons on the 
New Hampshire Grants, "have had a design to 
seize me as a Tory, and perhaps still have." 
(Force, vol. VI., 4th series, p. 641.) 

Schuyler had ordered Col. Elias Dayton, 
with a detachment of his regiment, to repair 
to Gilbert Tice's inn, at Johnstown, and secure 
there the Highlanders, men, women and 
children. This done, the order continued, 
"You will let Sir John Johnson know that 
you have a letter from me, which you are 
ordered to deliver in person, and beg his attend- 
ance to receive it. l~W If he comes, as soon as 
you have delivered the letter and he has read 
it, you are immediately to make him a close 
prisoner, and carefully guard him that he may 
not have the least opportunity to escape." 
His papers were then to be seized and ex- 
amined by Dayton and Wm. Duer (Force, 642.) 
Duer was sent with Dayton as a sort of civil 
agent. (He was the Wm. Duer who mar- v , 
ried the youngest daughter of Lord Stirling, \ 



Lady Kitty as she was styled, and the "Judge 
Duer of the above letter of Schuyler to Sulli- 
van). Copies of any against America were 
to be forwarded to Schuyler, and Sir John 
was to be sent to Albany under a strong 
guard, and Schuyler notified of his arrival. 
They were to take especial care that nothing 
whatever of his property was to be injured or 
destroyed except arms. (15). (Force 4th series. 
Vol. VI., pp. 447 and 643.) 

On the 19th, Dayton arrived at Johnstown, 
but found, as he himself reports, "that Sir 
John Johnson had received Gen. Schuyler's 
letter (about the Highlanders) by the express ; 
that he had consulted the Highlanders upon 
the contents, and that they had unanimously 
resolved not to deliver themselves as prison- 
ers, but to go another way, that Sir John 
Johnson had determined to go with them. 
(Force, 4th series, Vol. VI., p. 511.) 

They and Sir John considered that the 
treaty of the preceding January, for which 
their hostages were then in the hands of Con- 
gress, had been thus broken by the action of 
Schuyler, the Albany Committee, and b5^ 
Congress, and that they were thereby freed 
from their paroles. Moreover, Schuyler's let- 
ter of May 10th, quoted above, expressly says 
he has discharged Sir John Johnson from his 
parole. The common charge of historical 
writers that Sir John broke his parole is there- 
fore without foundation and untrue. 

Dayton at once took possession of Johnson 
Hall. He sent, according to his letter of the 
31st, to Schuyler, an officer with a letter to 
Lady Johnson, informing her of his design, 
and requesting all the keys. Shortly after, he 
and two other officers called upon her. She 
immediately produced all the keys; thev 
searched Sir Johns papers and the house, and 
placed guards all around it. Col. Dayton, 
thinking the guards about her would be pain- 
ful, requested her to remove to Albany, where 
he understood she had friends ; but she was 
averse to it,-v and he therefore wrote to 
Schuyler for directions. (Force, 4th Series, 
Vol. VI., p. (346.) 

At this time Lady Johnson was far advanced 
in pregnancy, and had with her a sister, (15), a 
young lady, and two small children. 

The next day— -the 25th — Schuyler writes 
Dayton: "I think it advisable that Lady 
Johnson should be moved to Albany without 
delay, in the most easy and commodious man- 
ner to her. You will also move all the High- 
landers and their families to that place; th s 
done you will post yourself in the most advan- 
tageous place on the Mohawk' river to secure 
that part of the country, and remain there 
until further orders." (Force, 4th Series, vol. 
vi., p. 647.) 

Lady Johnson was, accordingly, sent down, 
under the eye of an officer, with her sister, 
children and servants, to Albany, where 
she remained with her relatives, Mrs. Judith 
Bruce, who was by birth Judith Bayard (she 
married, first, Kilian van Rennselaer, of 
Greenbush, and, secondly, Dr. Archibald 
Bruce, R. A.), and Mrs. Stephen de Lancey 
(who was a neice of Mrs. Bruce, and whose 
husband was also a first cousin of Lady John- 
son), till after her confinement, and until Gen. 
Schuyler permitted her to leave that city. 

[Lt. Ebenezer Elmer, in his Journal, pub- 
lished in the New Jersey Historical Collections, 
vol. II. (1846-7), page 110, says the "Mayor of 
Albany is a Tory, and so are many of the in- 
habitants." Examine page 115-6-7 for Jesuiti- 
cal arguments against Sir John Johnson.] 

Schuyler, writing to Washington on June 
12, says: "It is the general opinion of people 



! in Tryon county that whilst Lady Johnson is 
kept a kind of hostage, Sir John will not 
carry matters to excess, and I have been en- 
treated to keep her here." Her brother. 
Robert Watts (Robert Watts was the brother- 
in-law of Wm. Duer, above mentioned, his 
wife being "Lady Mary," Lord Stirling's 
eldest daughter), applied to Washington in 
her behalf, who was willing she should 
go to New York, but referred him 
j to Schuyler, who declined to let her de- 
| part. On the 15th of June, the day Watts 
left Albany, he wrote to Schuyler, saying: 
"Mr. Watts wdl mention to Gen. Washington 
the reasons why Gen. Schuyler does not com- 
ply with his request for Lady Johnson to go to 
New. York." Schuyler replied he would write 
Washington himself, and that "you will 
therefore plea*- not to give yourself the un- 
necessary trouble of giving Gen. Washington 
my reasons." Watts answered: "As you 
will not consent to Lady Johnson going to 
New York, without giving two gentlemen 
as securities," he, Watts, would like 
to know, "what engagements they were 
to be under, as I cannot apply to any gentle- 
man un till you inform me." Schuyler closed 
the correspondence by saying: "As by your 
former note of this day's date, you seemed al- 
together to decline entering into such a meas- 
ure, I have since again given my sentiments 
to his Excellency, Gen. Washington, on Lady 
Johnson's situation in a fuller manner than I 
did in my former letter to him ; and I shall 
not, therefore, proceed any further till I re- 
ceive his commands." (Force, 4th Series, vol. 
VI., p. 913.) 

The next day Lady Johnson wrote to \\ i 
ington the following letter, sharply complain 
ing of Schuyler's treatment, and asking to be 
put under his, Washington's protection: 

"Albany, June 16th, 1776. 

"Sir — I take the liberty of complaining to 
you, a* it is from you I expect redress. I was 
compelled to leave home much against my in- 
clination, and am detained here by Gen. 
Schuyler, who, I am convinced, acts more out 
of ill-nature to Sir John than from any reason 
that he or I have given him. As I am not al- 
lowed to return home, and my situation here 
made as disagreeable as it can be by repeated 
threats and messages from Gen. Schuyler, too 
indelicate and cruel to be expected from a gen- 
tleman, I should wish to be with my friends 
at New York, and woidd prefer my cap- 
tivity under your Excellency's protection to 
being in the power of Gen. Schuyler, who 
rules with more severity than could be wished 
by your Excellency's 

" Humble servant, 

"M. Johnson." 

[Force, 4th series, vol. VI., p. 930.] 

Four days afterwards, on June 20th a 1776, 
Washington wrote Schuyler from New York, 
enclosing the Resolves of Congress for the em- 
ployment of Indians (of 25th May, June 3, 
and June 6, 1776. Secret Journals of Congre s, 
vol. I., pp. 44, 45, 46), and urging the "most 
active exertions for accomplishing and carry- 
ing the whole into execution with all possible 
despatch." 

[This, from those who so bitterly complained 
of the employment of Indians, seems a curious 
piece of casuistic inconsistency.] 

A postscript to this letter, dated June 21, 
says: 

"I shall only add, Lady Johnson may 
remain at Albany till further directions. 

"George Washington. 

"To General Schuyler." 

(Force, 4th series, vol. VI., p. 992.) 



She remained, therefore, in charge of the 
Albany Committee until the succeeding De- 
cember — six months longer. 

On the Oth of December Gen. Schuyler wrote 
them: "If the Committee agree to let Lady 
Johnson go down, I am sure I have no objec- 
tions ; but no person can be permitted to go to 
New York without a pass from the General 
commanding in Westchester county. Her 
Ladyship should therefore go to Fishkill, and 
from thence send for the necessary passport 
No ill-treatment I may have received can in- 
duce me to forget the laws of decorum and 
humanity. You will, therefore, if Lady John- 
son chooses to be attended by an officer, apply 
in my name to Col. Gansevoort for one. On 
your part you will see that she is properly ac- 
commodated for her passage." (Journals Pro- 
vincial Convention, vol. II., p. 256.) 

The Albany Committee gave her a pass to 
Fishkill, which she enclosed (as Mrs. Bruce 
did likewise with a similar pass for herself) by 
letter of the 15th of December to Pierre van 
Cortlandt (who was also a first cousin of 
Lady Johnson's mother, and of Gen. Schuyler), 
President of the Convention, requesting the 
favor of a pass "to proceed with Capt. Man to 
New York." (Journals Prov. Con., vol. II., 
p. 356.) 

The convention was sitting in New York, 
but soon after adjourned to Fishkill, where 
they sat in the Church of England edifice. 
Pierre van Cortlandt laid her request before 
the convention, which declined to allow her to 
go to New York, but gave her the choice of a 
residence, naming four places, the houses of 
the two gentlemen mentioned in the text, and 
that of Mr. Barclay, at Walkill, in ■ Ulster 
county, or to remain in Fishkill. All three 
gentlemen were her friends and family con- 
nections, and she chose Mr. Barclay's, in Ul- 
ster county. At Fishkill she had lodgings 
with Mr. Petrus Bogardus, which Mr. Gouver- 
neur Marris had loudly obtamed for her. 

Mr. Tappeu, (Dr. Christopher Tappen, a 
brother-in-law of Gov. George Clinton.) of 
Ulster county, was appointed a committee "to 
dewse means for escorting Lady Johnson to 
some proper and safe place of residence. He 
states, in his ;re"port, made January 6, 1777, 
(Journals Prov. Con., vol. I, p. 761), that he 
went to Mrs. Bogardus' house, but found she 
had crossed the river the day before he arrived ; 
that your committee likewise crossed the 
river and overtook Lady Johnson at the house 
of Col. Jonathan Hasbrouck, where he con- 
ferred with her on the subject' of her 
residence, "when she told him that 
she had chosen the Walkill for two 
reasons: The season of the year would not per- 
mit her three infants travelling far, and sec- 
ond, that she was nearly connected in 
family with Mi-. Barclay, (Thomas H. Bar- 
clay, who was the eldest son of Dr. Henry 
Barclay, of Trinity Church, and whose wife, 
Susanna de Lancey, was a first cousin of Lady 
Johnson,) at whose house she intended 
to put up; "that your Committee endeavored, 
as much as in their power, consistent with the 
honor of this Convention, to dissuade her from 
going there. But she being determined to 
take the advantage of the resolves of this 
State, your Committee, therefore, at Lady 
Johnson's re-guest, procured carriages, 
for which she paid the drivers. 
And your Committee did in person 
wait on her and escort her and 
her family, consisting of her ladyship, three 
children, Miss Watts, a nurse, one white and 
one negro servant, to the house lately occu- 
pied by Mr. Barclay." 



The Convention ordered Mr. Tappen's "bill 
of expenses in escorting Lady* Johnson, 
amounting to one pound nineteen shillings and 
nine pence," paid by the secretary and charged 
to the Convention. 

As the Journal of the New York Convention 
from Dec. 14, 1776, to Jan. 1, 1777, is missing, 
the exact language of the resolutions regard- 
ing Lady Johnson cannot be given. Tappen's 
report, and the author's statement, agreeing 
generally, show the action, but not the manner 
of it. Cadwallader Colden and Thomas Bar- 
clay lived near each other in the neighborhood 
of Coldenham, then in Ulster county, now in 
Orange, and were practically one family; 
hence the author speaks of Mr. Col den's house 
in connection with Lady J ohnson. Mr. Colden 
being a relation of both ladies, Mrs. Barclay 
and Lady Johnson (Mr. Colden and Mrs. Bar- 
clay were uncle and niece, the latter's mother, 
Mrs. Peter de Lancey [J. W. de P.'s grand- 
mother], of \ \ est Farms, Westchester county, 
being Mr. Colden's sister Elizabeth. Mrs. Bar- 
clay and Lady Johnson were first cousins, the 
father of the former, Mr. Peter de Lancey, of 
West Farms, and the mother of the latter, 
Mrs. John Watts, of New Y"ork (Anne de 
Lancey), being brother and sister. 

The "Major Abeel," whom Lady Johnson so 
strangely encountered while escaping to New 
York, as stated on page SI (17), was James, son 
of David Abeel, of the old New York family of 
that name, and Mary Duyckinck, his wife. 
In early life a clerk in the counting-house of 
John Watts, of New York, Lady Johnson's 
father, he entered the army at the outbreak of 
the war as a Captain in Lasher's regiment in the 
New York service, became Major, Colonel and 
Deputy Quartermaster-General, and was also 
on Washington's Staff at Morristown. He mar- 
ried Gertrude Neilson, of New Jersey, and died 
at the house of his son David, at New Bruns- 
wick, N. J. , April 25th, 1825, at the ripe age 
of 93. (^[S. letter of his grandson, the Bet. 
Gustavus Abeel, D. D., of Newark, .V, J.) 

It may interest the reader to know that Sir 
John Johnson was born on the 5th of Novem- 
ber, 1742, and died at his residence at St. 
Mary's, Montreal, on Monday, January 4th, 
1880, in the 88th year of his age, and was 
buried on the Sth in the family vault at Mount 
Johnson (named after the first house Sir Wil- 
liam built on the Mohawk), on the south side 
of the St. Lawrence, near Montreal. Lady 
Johnson was born in New York, 29th October, 
1753, and died at Montreal, August 7th, 1815, 
in her 61st year, and was buried by her hus- 
band in the vault at Mount Johnson. They 
were married in New York in 1778. 

J. W. DE P.'S NOTES ON PRECEDING. 

The attention of impartial readers is 
particularly invited to the following 
observations: 1. The original charges against 
Sir John Were made by a "woman" 
and "both subsequently proved false." 
2. Schuyler terms himself and his as- 
sociates ••faithful subjects of his Majesty." 
What right had "faithful subjects" if truly 
so and not unfaithful subjects, to arrest bos 
Majesty's officer, who assured the former that 
"lie only meant to guard himself from insults 
by riotous people," who afterwards outraged 
him, robbed him and drove him forth and 
confiscated his property to reward his real 
fidelity to the crown. 3. Lady Johnson was 
assured that "whatever may be the results 
* * - * no indignity will be offered her." 
Contrary to this pledge she was subsequently' 
arrested, removed, placed under guard, and 
held as a hostage for over six months. [See 



I New Jersey Historical Collections, Vol. III., 
: (1848-9), of Gov. (Loyai) William Franklin, 
' only son of (Rebel) Benjamin Franklin, pages 
i 139-159, as to "faithful subjects" and their 
treatment.] 

A large number of the instigators, like Tom 
Paine, and abettors of the rebellion or 
revolution, were foreigners, and one 
of Sir John's bitterest persecutors, Isaac Paris, 
who fell at Oriskany, was an Englishman by 
birth. Out of the twenty-nine Continental 
Major-Generals — in reality twenty-three, for 
one resigned immediately, two were out of the 
service before the war was half over, two be- 
came Major-Generals in 17S2, after it was vir- 
tually ended, and one was Arnold — nine were 
foreigners, three English, two Irish, two 
French, and two German. 

The Protestant Scotch-Irish (not the Roman 
Catholic Irish-born) furnished a large number 
of officers and officials to the Revolutionary 
party. As for Herkimer (to follow the ordi- 
nary or popular spelling of his name), what- 
ever may have been his virtues, he was a most 
illiterate man. "Old Put" (Maj-Gen. Putnam), 
with all his lack of education and capacity, 
was accomplished in comparison. Witness 
Herkimer's letter or order published verbatim 
by Lossing, the historian. Time and research 
are revealing a multitude of facts with regard 
to the standing, ability, enlightenment and 
other qualities of the Revolutionary sires, and 
by no means, in the majority of cases, to their 
advantage. 

[From the Schuyler MSS.] 

GEN. SCHUYLER TO LADY JOHNSON. 

Saratoga, May 14, 1776. 
Madam : 

Mr. Duer, who is good as to take charge of 
this, will advise you of the pain Sir John's con- 
duct has occasioned me, and how much I have 
been distressed at the sad necessity which 
obliges me to secure his person. He will also 
inform you how much I have suffered on his 
account last Winter. But aitho' he has for- 
got the obligations he lays under to me, yet 
his usage will be such as if he had not, for I am 
incapable of prostituting my office to Resent- 
ment. [See Lady Johnson's letter to Wash- 
ington as an offset to this meekness.] 

I entreat you therefore to make yourself 
perfectly easy on that head. Should you 
choose to accompany or follow Sir John, all 
the care and attention will be paid you which 
is due to your rank and sex. But if Sir John 
chooses that you should remain, an officer's 
guard will be left, if required, to prevent any 
insult that might be offered by imprudent or 
malicious people to yourself or family. 
I am, etc., 

Ph. Schuyler. 

[See Schuyler's letter of 19th September, 
1776, as to plundering, and Lt. Elmer's ad- 
missions in his journal, published by the New 
Jersey Historical Society, Vol. II., 1846-7. 
Pages 121, etc.] 

[From the Schuyler Mss.] 

SCHUYLER TO GEN. SULLIVAN. 

Saratoga, May 14, 1776. 
Dr. Sir — Some time ago an Information on 
Oath was lodged with me against Sir John 
Johnson, charging him with hostile intentions 
against us ; this has since been confirmed by 
other information from persons whom I am not 
at liberty to name.^^I Judge Duer, who has 
taken one of the examinations and was pres- 
ent at another, will inform you more particu- 
larly. This information has induced the in- 



closed order to Col. Dayton, whom I beg you 
will detach with 300 of his most alert men to 
execute this businesss and to order the Com- 
missary-General to furnish him with six days' 
provisions and carriage to convey it ; and pre- 
pare to send more if there should be occasion. 
It is necessary that Sir John Johnson 
should not be apprized of their real design, 
and I have, therefore, wrote him on the 
subject of moving the Highlanders from 
Tryon county, which you will please to 
peruse, seal, and send to him by express the 
soonest possible. I am, etc., 

Ph. Schuyler. 

[Will any unprejudiced reader aver that the 
above is otherwise than the bait of a trap?] 
[From the Schuyler MSS.] 

SCHUYLER TO VOLKERT P. DOUW, ESQ. 

Saratoga, May 14, 1776. 

Dear Sir — Having received information, 
supported by affidavits, that Sir John Johnson, 
slighting the engagements he entered into 
with me last winter, is making hostile prepa- 
rations. It is my duty to put it out of his 
power to carry them into execution by secur- 
ing his person, for which I have given orders, 
as likewise for the removal of the Highlanders 
on request of their chief Mr. McDonald, the 
latter will be the excuse given for the march 
of the troops to Johnstown, that they may 
not be insulted by imprudent people. 

[Mrs. McDonald and the Highlanders did not 
desire to be removed, and McDonald had no 
right to make any request on the subject at 
point marked (14).]' 

These intended operations will make it in- 
dispensably necessary that you should imme- 
diately inform the Mohawks, that some troops 
are going to Johnstown, but that no evil will 
thence result to them, and it is also absolutely 
necessary that you and Mr. Yates should 
move up with the troops, and as soon as Sir 
John is apprehended, inform the Indians, a« 
well the other Indians as the Mohawks of the 
reasons which occasioned it, and which will 
be given by Mr. Duer, who took one of the af- 
fidavits and who was present at the examina- 
tion of another person. 

I need not recommend that the Greatest 
secrecy is necessary. Your own good judg- 
ment will point that out. 

I am, Dear Sir, etc. 

Ph. Schuyler. 
[From the Schuyler MSS.] 

SCHUYLER TO SIR JOHN JOHNSON, BARONET. 

Saratoga, May 14, 1776. 
Sir — After candidly scanning, coolly con 
sidering and comparing the variety of infor- 
mation which imputes to you the most hostile 
intentions against the country, I could have 
wished for the sake of human nature to have 
found them groundless; unhappi y they are 
too well supported by the testimony even of 
those who were intrusted with the secret of 
your intended operations, and whose remorse (!) 
has incline i them to a full discovery, as not 
to leave a do bt upon my mind that you have 
acted contrary to the sacred engagement you 
lay under to me and through me to the public. 
It is, therefore, recessary for the public safe- 
ty of the inhabitants and the weal of the 
country that I should put it out of your 
power to embroil it in domestic con- 
fusion, and have therefore ordered you to 
be made a close prisoner ^g"(hereby dis- 
charging you froitu your parole) ^HSjf and 
sent down to Albany, to be thence con- 
veyed to his Excellency, Gen. Washington. 
But influenced by and acting upon principles 



which will never occasion a remorse of con- 
science, I have at the same time ordered that 
no insult shall be offered to your person or 
family, and that your property shoidd lw 
guarded and secured with a scrupulous atten- 
tion. For, sir, American commanders en- 
gaged in the cause of liberty remain uninflu- 
enced by the savage and brutal example, 
which has been given them by the British 
troops in wantonly setting on fire the build- 
ings of individuals and otherwise destroying 
their property. 

I am, sir, your humble servant, 

Ph. Schuyler. 



[See Schuyler's letter to Lady Johnson, ad- 
mitting the plundering of her property, and 
Col. Dayton's admissions. New Jersey His- 
torical Collections. Vol. ii. (1846-7), pages 
120-1-2.] 

[''Toronto was founded in the Spring of 1794 
by [Loyalist Lieut. -Gen. John Graves] Simcoe, 
and was named York, a name which was 
changed in 1834 to that which it now bears, 
being one given to the spot by the Indians,and 
signifying in their tongue 'the place of meet- 
ing.' Its progress was not very rapid at first. 
During the war which the United States 
waged between 1812 and 1815 it was occupied 
by the troops of that country, and its public 
buildings were burnt to the ground. This 
was done by the express orders of the United 
States government, the declared purpose being 
that the innocent inhabitants of Upper Cana- 
da might be made to stiff er as severely as 
possible. " 

Were these severities directed against this 
particular district on account of the manner in 
which it was settled? The following may explain 
the virulence which dictated the order and the 
violence with which it was executed: "Some 
of the best blood of the settlers in the 
Province of Ontario flowed in the veins 
of the United Empire [American] Loyal- 
ists, and still flows in those of their sue- ' 
cessors. Having been expelled from their 
ancestral possessions in the United States, 
tbey found a new and undisturbed home in the 
Province over which the flag of Great Britain 
waved. The country was then a wilderness, 
and existence was a toil. The settlers were 
inspired with an idea which ennobled and 
nerved them amidst their sufferings and labors. 
They had been forced to leave their 
native homes because they would not 
help or sanction the disruption of 
an Empire which glorified and widened the 
dominion of their race, even though it were 
indisputable that its temporary rulers had 
failed in understanding and fulfilling their 
duties. It is now admitted, when too late, 
that these Loyalists were men of high princi- 
ple and lofty aspirations, and none regrets 
their punishment more sincerely than the de- 
scendants of those persons who thousrht them- 
selves the friends of their country in inflicting 
it. Few things are more certain than the fact 
that, if the United Empire Loyalists had been 
suffered to remain in the United States, the 
foundation of Upper Canada would never have 
been laid, and th-:t the annexation of this por- 
tion of the continent to the United States 
would have been effected soon after the con- 
solidation of the Republic." 

Columbia and Canada Notes on the Great 
Republic and the New Dominion. A supple- 
ment to "Westward by Rail," by W. Fraser 
Rae. New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1879, 
p. 215.] 



[From the Schuyler MSS. i 

SCHUYLER TO WM. DUER, ESQ. : 

Fort George, May 25, 1776. 

Dear Sir — Your tavor of yesterday was 
delivered meat eleven this morning. 1 ani ex- 
ceedingly sorry that Sir John has escaped us. 
I have ordered Lady Johnson to be moved 
to Albany, that she may be in a place of 
safety and incapable of giving intelligence to 
her husband. I am of opinion with you that 
the families of the German Tories, who have 
gone off with Sir John, should also be moved : 
but this is a matter in which the committee 
must be consulted, and if they approve of it, 
Col. Dayton will send them off. 

I am ill with the ague and overburthened 
with business. Adieu. Yours most sincerely, 
etc., Ph. Schuyler.' 

[From the Schuyler MSS.] 

SCHUYLER TO MR. ROBERT WATTS. 

Albany, 15th June, 1776. 
Sir — You cannot fail of recollecting what 
engagements I expected the gentlemen^ should 
enter into, who might become security, but 
as by your former note of this day's date you 
beemed altogether to decline entering into 
such a measure, I have since again given my 
sentiments to his Exoelle2icy Gen. Washington 
on Lady Johnson's situation in a manner more 
full and explicit than 1 did in my former 
Letter to him, and I shall therefore, not pro- 
ceed any farther until I receive his commands. 
I am, sir, your humble servant, 

Ph. Schuyler. 

same to same. 

Albany, June 15th, 1776. 
Sir — I have received your note and shall 
take the earliest opportunity of advising Gen. 
Washington of the reasons which induce me 
not to permit Lady Johnson to leave Albany 
on any other terms than what I proposed to 
you. You will therefore please not to give 
yourself the unnecessary trouble of giving 
Gen. Washington my reasons. I am, sir, 
your humble servant," 

Ph. Schuyler. 

[From the Schuyler MSS.] 

SCHUYLER TO LADY JOHNSON. 

Albany, Sept. 19, 1776. 

Madame — Your letter of the 18th was de 
livered me near two o'clock this afternoon. 

When Mr. Glen applied in your name re- 
questing that you might be permitted to re- 
turn to Johnson Hall, I gave my consent, pro- 
vided the committee should approve it. I 
wrote to them on the subject and they were 
unanimously of opinion that your request 
ought not to be granted. I am bound to con- 
form to their opinion, although it was by my 
order that I (you ?) was removed to this place ; an 
order of which I can never repent, any more 
than that which I gave, that no part of Sir 
John's property should be injured ox his per- 
son insulted; an attention which, however, v 
he was not entitled to, when I was at the very * 
time informed of his designs against me and 
mine. 

|3gPThe breach of my orders in plundering the 
Hall, has already been punished by the break- \ 
ing of one officer, and others who are supposed 
to be concerned will be tried as soon as the 
witnesses which are sent for arrive from Fort 
Stanwix. 

I am your Ladyship's humble servant, 

Ph. Schuyler. 



[From the Schuyler MSS. Extract.] 

SCHUYLER TO WASHINGTON. 

Albany, June 15th, 1776. 

Dear General — " It is the general opinion 
of the people in Tryon county and here that 
whilst Lady Johnson is kept a kind of hostage, 
Sir John (who can by means of the Mohawks 
receive intelligence from her as often as she 
may please to send it) will not carry matters 
to excess, and I have been entreated to keep her 
here; but as it was a matter of delicacy when 
Mr. Watts delivered me your Excellency's let- 
ter, I proposed that security should be given 
that Lady Johnson should be forthcoming 
when called upon, and besides the above rea- 
sons, I was the more induced to this re- 
quest, as I am informed, from good au- 
thority, that she exults in the prospect 
she has of soon hearing that Sir John will 
ravage the country on the Mohawk river. 
Mr. Watts declined giving anj^ security and 
soon after wrote me a note, a copy of which, 
with copy of my answer I enclose, and after- 
wards a second, which I also answered as you 
will see by the inclosed. I find that since it 
has been hinted that she is a good security to 
prevent the effects of her husband's violence 
that she is very anxious to go down, and 
which induces me to wish to keep her here." 

I am Dear Sir, with every friendly wish, etc. 
Ph. Schuyler. 

[From the Schuyler MSS.] 

SCHUYLER TO THE OOMMITTEI5 OF ALBANY. 

Albany, Sept. 15, 1776. 
Gentlemen — Lady Johnson has just now 
applied to me, by Mr. Cornelius Glen, for a 
permit to return to Johnson Hall. He has ob- 
served that sha is far advanced in her preg- 
nancy, and that it will be very inconvenient 
for her to lay in here. Altho' I see no reason 
for refusing to comply with her request, I 
would wish to be favored with the opinion of 
the Committee, and entreat they will give it 
me. I am, etc. , Ph. Schuyler. 



IN REGARD TO ROUTES THROUGH THE ADIRON- 
DACK WILDERNESS. 

In the address itself allusion is made to Sir 
John's escape from Johnstown to Canada. The 
route he followed has never been explicitly 
demonstrated. Recent discoveries of skeletons 
(one in particular last Summer, 1879) shows 
that there must have been tracks through the 
northern wilderness of New York, which were 
once well known to the Indians, trappers, 
"prospectors" and frontier guides, of which 
the knowledge has been lost for generations. 
The route along the course of West Canada 
Creek, by which, after a march South- 
ward of twenty -two days, the French 
and Huron Indians precipitated them- 
j selves on a midwinter's midnight, 8th 
[/February, 1690, upon Schenectady, was not the 
track northward, followed by Sir John in mid- 
May, 1776. Watson, in his "History of Essex 
County," N. Y., note 3, pages 31-2, remarks of 
the opinion entertained m regard to the West 
Canada Creek route, it "is opposed to the gener- 
ally received idea that this road was along the 
fine of Lake Champlain. A route by West 
Canada Creek implies an avenue of communi- 
cation between Canada and the Mohawk Val- 
ley different from that afforded by the usual 
line traversed by the French, either from 
Oswego or by the way of Lake Cham- 
plain. The route mentioned possibly had a 
terminus on the St. Lawrence, near the mouth 
of the Black river. Writers constantly advert 
to the use of such an intermediate channel; 



but their attention does not seem to have been 
directed to its locality or character. Sir John 
Johnson, it is stated, when he violated .his pa- 
role [a falsehood], and fled with the mass of his 
tenantry to Canada, consumed nineteen days, 
with great exposure and suffering, in travers- 
ing the wilderness by some interior line, 
known to him and the Indians. But no fur- 
ther light is thrown upon a question which, to 
my mind, is invested with much geographical 
and historical interest. I will venture the 
presumption that at this period more 
than one familiar route had been es- 
tablished through the vast primeval for- 
ests which embrace the western confines of Es- 
sex county, which still exist essentially in 
their original gloom and solitudes. No other 
route would have been available, when both 
Oswego and Champlain, as often occurred, 
were in the occupation of a hostile power. 
The valleys of the streams which flow into the 
Mohawk and Hudson, and which almost min- 
gle their waters with the affluents of the St. 
Lawrence, might have been ascended, and the 
lakes and rivers of the wilderness may have 
been used with great facility for a canoe nav- 
igation. A few trifling 'carrying places' 
would have intei-posed oidy slight impediments, 
and when closed by the frosts of Winter, these 
waters could still afford a most favorable 
route of communication. Otter avenues 
through this wilderness were undoubtedly 
accessible, but my own observation has sug- 
gested one which I will trace. The upper 
valley of the Hudson may have been pene- 
trated, until the line 'is reached of a small 
branch, • which starting from the lakes in the 
vicinity of the 'Adirondac Works,' finds its 
way to the Hudson. Passing up the valley 
along which this stream gradually descends, 
the inaccessible range of mounlains 
would be avoided. Thence traversing the 
'Indian Pass' in nearly an imperceptible 
ascent, the plains of North Elba would be 
reached, and these open upon the vast plateau 
of the wilderness, along which the Racket 
rolls a gentle current, adapted to the Indian 
canoe, to the St. Lawrence. This idea possibly 
explains the origin of the modern name which 
has been assigned to the wonderful structures 
known to the natives as 'Otneyarh,'' 'the place 
of stony giants.''" 

"Gentlemen of great intelligence and careful 
I observation have assured me that they have 
noticed evidences in the wilderness of other 
ancient pathways disclosed by still open 
: tracks, the vestiges of rude bridges and the 
mouldering remains of coarsely hewn vehicles 
calculated for manual transportation." 

Jersey City Heights, Jan. 8 1880. 
| Dear Sir — In reply to your letter asking 
for some particulars in regard to Crane Monu- 
i tain in connection with Sir John Johnson's 
! route from Buluagga Bay in Lake Cham- 
plain to Cherry Valley, I would say that my 
attention was first called to it in the Fall of 
1852, while on a deer-stalking expedition in 
the Adirondacks, by an old hunter, who had 
; often been surprised at such evidences of care- 
i ful military work in pieces where he supposed 
white feet had never trodden until a compara- 
tively recent date. A careful examina- 
tion was thereupon undertaken by me 
resulting in the conclusion that Johnson's raid 
either was by no means so precipitate as has 
hitherto been believed, or else that he had 
with him a skilled engineer with men under 
him who were accustomed to work with great 
celerity. 
Although the road is now overgrown with 



bushes and scrub timber, yet a very little ob- j 
serration reveals a well made corduroy road 
underneath (still in excellent preservation) I 
with tlie gap in the forest where the primeval | 
trees were cut down for the road. This road, 
coining down from the valley of the Bouquet i 
and Schroon rivers, meets the base of Crane 
Mountain at its northwestern side, and follow- \ 
ing around the base of the mountain leaves it I 
on its southeastern point, and goes off hi a 
well-defined trail to the Sacandaga. Thence 
crossing that stream it is lost in the forest in a 
bee line to the Fish House, Johnstown, and 
the Cherry Valley settlement. 

It is, I may remark here, a great mistake to 
imagine that the whites were the first to know 
this region — the truth being that all this wil- 
derness was as well known to the Iroquois, not 
to speak of previous races, as one's own library 
is to its owner. Crane Mountain at the pres- 
ent time (not so much from its height, though 
it is a high mountain, as from its peculiar 
position in the Adirondack chain) can be seen 
from any direction within a radius of 
seventy miles. Crane Mountain was, of 
course, as prominent a landmark in 1780 
as it is now, and in descending from 
the Valley of the Schroon, it was undoubtedly 
seen and seized upon as a point to make for,on 
Johnson's way to the Sacandaga. Indeed, it 
has been made the base of the trigonometrical 
survey of the northern section of New York 
State. I am sincerely rejoiced that Sir John 
Johnson has at length found so able a defender 
as yourself, and I remain, 

Yours cordially, 

Wm. L. Stone. 

Maj.-Gen, J. Watts de Peyster. 

SIR JOHN JOHNSON'S HIRST INROAD IN MAY, 

1880. '■)$(? 

In the Spring of 1780, Sir John Johnson or- 
ganized, atTiconderoga, a band of about five 
hundred men, composed of Regulars, a party 
of his own corps of "Royal Greens," and two 
hundred Tories and Indians, and proceeded on 
an errand, [of retaliation into the Mohawk 
Valley.] 

"Penetrating the rude wilderness of moun- 
tains, forests and waters, which spreads west- 
ward from Lake George, he reached and as- 
cended the valley of the Sacandaga. This 
route compelled him to cross a site which his 
father in happier days was accustomed often to 
visit hi pursuit of relaxation and rural pas- 
times. * * * 

"He passed onward, unchanged hi his fierce 
designs, to descend at midnight upon his 
native valley in a whirlwind of rapine and 
flame. * * * 

A common and indiscriminate ruin involved 
all who had adhered to the republican cause. 
* * * There was nothing left in 
a wide track along the beautiful valley 
of the Mbhawk, where yesterday stood the 
abodes of plenty, but a mass of ashes slaked 
with blood. The professed object of this piti- 
less incursion was the recovery of a mass of 
valuable plate, which a faithfui slave had as- 
sisted to bury in 1 77(5. With silent and un- 
wavering fidelity he had watched over the de- 
posit, although in the confiscation of the John- 
son estate he had been sold to another master. 
The plate was recovered and distributed in the 
knapsacks of forty different soldiers. By this 
means it was all safely conveyed into Canada. 
An alarm had been immediately sounded, and 
the local militia, under Col. Harper, be- 
ginning to assemble, Sir John made a 
rapid retreat. He bore with him what plun- 
der he was able to convey, and forty 
prisoners ,JgJ : and reaching his bateaux 



at Crown Point, returned to Canada in 
safety, successfully evading the pursuit of 
Gov. Clinton aided by detachments from the 
New Hampshire Grants. 

Maj. Carlton, in the Autumn of the same 
year, proceeded from St. John's with a 
formidable fleet, conveying more than 1,000 
men, * * * and on the 10th and 11th of 
October, with a trifling loss, captured Fort 
Ann and Fort George. He completely 
devastated the country along his line of 
march; but the marked exemption of the ter- j 
ritory of Vermont from these ravages were j \X' 
calculated to excite jealousy and appre-f 
hension. * * * 

At this epoch was initiated the enigmatical 
and extraordinary relations, which subsisted 
for several years between the British authori- 
ties in Canada and the government of Ver- 
mont. The people of the New Hampshire 
Grants had formally declared their indepen 
dence in 1777, and under the name of Ver- 
mont had assumed the attitude and preroga- , 
tives of a sovereign State. Any discussion 
of the character of these relations, a subject 
that has so nearly baffled all distinct and satis- 
factory explanation, is foreign to our pur- 
pose. * * A glance at the peculiar posture 
of Vermont in her domestic and public affairs is 
necessary, hi order to approach a just appre- 
ciation of the ambiguous policy of her leaders 
at this juncture. A difference of opinion even 
yet exists in legal minds in reference to the 
legitimacy of the claims of New York upon 
the New Hampshire Grants. Whatever may 
have been the strength or validity of these 
claims, it is certain that a deep and bitter 
hostility towards New York was the all-per- 
vading feeling of the heroic and independent 
[sic] people who occupied the territory in dis- 
pute. This sentiment was stimulated by the 
sincere conviction that these claims were un- 
just, and that Vermont had endured great 
wrong from the grasping injustice and 
oppression of her more powerful neigh- 
bor. To * * * escape the political ab- 
sorption which they believed was contem- 
plated by New York, was the inexorable de- 
termination of the remarkable body of men, 
who at that period guarded [guided] the policy 
of Vermont. With them, the purpose was par- 
amount to everv other consideration. The de- 
votion of these leaders, in common with all the 
population of the Grants, to the cause of Ameri- 
can Independence, through all the early vicissi- 
tudes of the contest, had been active and ardent. 
* * * * * * * 

The over-ruling law of self-preservation, the 
astute statesmen of Vermont alleged, justified 
and even demanded a resort to extraordinary 
measures, and such as would be warranted by 
no common emergencies. Then - apologists 
now aver that these men designed, by shrew d 
diplomacy, to shield the State from the over- 
Whelming assaults of the British army lying 
upon its borders, and at the same time to Se; 
cure an ultimate protection from the aggres- 
sions of New York. At this time in the fight 
of later disclosures [j3p] the position will 
scarcely be controverted, that it was their 
fixed and deliberate purpose if the exigency 
arose of deciding hi the choice of two evils, to 
return to a colonial dependence, fortified "by 
safe and honorable terms" rather than sub- 
mit to the power of New York. The same de- 
termination was avowed by Gov. Chittenden 
in 1781, in his official correspondence with 
Washington. 

(The Military and Civil History of the 
County of Essex, N. Y , &c. embracing an 
account of the Northern Wilderness. &c, by 
Winslow C. Watson, Albany. N. Y., 1- 



Proofs Considered 

IN CONNECTION WITH THE VINDICATION OF 

SIR JOHN JOHNSON, BART., 

BEING A SECOND APPENDIX TO 

JLN JlDDRESS 

Delivered before the New York Historical Society, at its Annual Meeting, 
Tuesday, 6th January, 1880. 

BY J. WATTS de PEYSTER, Brev. Maj.-Gen. S. N. Y., L.L. D., F. R. H. S., &C. 

Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, Vol. ii., 1846-1847, 
Pages 115-122, 127, 128. 



[EXTRACTS FROM A] 

Journal kept during an Expedition to Can- 
ada in 1776 ; by Ebenezer Elmer, Lieutenant 
in the Third Regiment of New Jersey in the 
Continental service, commanded by Col. Elias 
Dayton. Printed from the original manu- 
script. Presented to the [N. J.] Historical 
Society by the Hon. L. Q. C. Elmer, of 
Bridgeton. 

"Tuesday, May 21st, 1776. — Johnstown lies 
in Tryon Comity [now capital of Ful- 
ton county], New York Government, for- 
ty-five miles W. N. W. of Albany, four 
miles [N. from Erie Canal and] from the 
Mohawk River, between the Upper, called 
Fort Hunter, and the Lower, called Fort Hen- 
dricks, Mohawk Castle, twelve miles from 
Sonondag [Sacondaga] ; from thence a creek 
communicates with the North River, and 
from thence there is a communication to Can- 
ada by land." * * * "By examination of 
several persons, Whigs and Tories, it 
appears that Sir John [Johnson] can 
raise of his own tenants about 300 Scots 
and as may Dutch and Irish ; that they have 
arms and ammunition. The town contains 
about 30 houses, mostly small half stories. 
The country round the town is fertile, and 
would, by proper cultivation, produce abun- 
dantly. It is well situated (connecting the 
North and Mohawk rivers), to tamper with 
the Indians, to connect Tories beiow with 
those above, and in case we [Rebels] should be 
importunate on either side to fall upon us, or 
the weaker party, cut off our retreat, and take 
advantage of the fluctuating passions of man- 
kind, that any circumstances might be un- 
proved against us. It is very evident Sir 
John's tenants are against us from the very 
circumstance of their being tenants, and 
otherwise in debt to Sir John and dependant 
on him." 



[This method of argument is simply ridicu- 
lous. The easiest course for Sir John's debtors 
would have been to join the Revolutionary 
party, and by this "new way to pay old 
debts" cancel all their obligations and sacri- 
fice the son and daughters of their benefac- 
tor. The Debtors, however, being honest men, 
rejected the Jesuitic arguments of their 
tempters, elected to abide by their agreements 
and stand bv then creditor, and paid not only 
' 'the last full measure of devotion" to the crown, 
but pay their pecuniary obligations to the 
Baronet. The Revolutionaries, having failed 
in their own sense of duty, seemed to see all 
things through the medium of then perverted 
ideas of right and wrong, even to a total ob- 
liviousness of their own fallacious logic and 
criminal estimate of sincerity and loyalty.] 

"Till these circumstances are altered, they 
cannot be our friends. There appears to be but 
two ways of procuring this country in our 
interest : The one to keep a garrison here to 
support the Whigs and molest the Tories ; the 
other in planting Whigs in the room of 
Tories." [It is a pity the victorious North did 
not act on this principle towards the Southern 
rebels after the surrender at Appomattox 
Court House in 1865.] 

Johnstown, May 22d, 1776. — I was early 
this morning directed, by Col. Dayton, 
to take a file of men and go to Johnson 
Hall with my side arms only, and wait on Lady 
Johnson, [born Mary Watts, daughter of John 
Watts of N. Y.,] with a letter— the substance 
of whie.h was to demand the keys of the hall 
and drawers in the room— with directions for 
her immediately to pack up her clothes and go 
to Albany, that an officer and guaa'd should 
wait on her there if she chose. I went tb 
the Hall accordingly, and after directing the 
Sergeant of my guard to place sentries 
around the Hall, I asked for her ladyship, 



who was then in bed, and after waiting an 
hour she came into the parlor. I gave her 
the letter, with assuring her it gave me great 
pain, I was under the disagreeable necessity 
of delivering her a letter that must give her 
ladyship a great deal of uneasiness, and which 
my duty obliged me to do in obedience to the 
order of my superior officer. She hastily 
broke open the letter and immediately burst 
into a flood of tears, which affected me so I 
thought proper to leave her alone. After 
some time she sent for me, composed her- 
self, ordered the keys of the Hall to be brought 
in and given to me., and which I de- 
sired might lite on the table until the Colonel 
came. After which I breakfasted with her 
ladyship and Miss Chew. After breakfast 
Col Day tow, Lieut. -Col. White and Maj. 
Barber came, and we, in the presence of her 
ladyship and Miss Chew, examined every 
room and every drawer in Johnson HaD, 
which is a very beautiful, large and elegant 
building, with "two forts built last war, about 
half a mile from town, on a small eminence, 
with two fine streams of water about forty 
rods on each side of the Hall. I had a view of 
Sir Wm, Johnson's picture, which was 
curiously surrounded with all kinds of beads 
of Wampum, Indian curiosities and trappings 
of Indian finery, which he had received in his 
treaties with the different Indian nations — cu- 
riosities sufficient to amuse the curious ; indeed 
this search gave me an opportunity of fully 
satisfying my curiosity in seeing everything 
in Johnson Hall. We saw all Sir William's 
papers of all the treaties he had made with the 
different Indian nations, with medals of vari- 
ous sorts sent him from Europe and others, 
which he distributed at his treaties to the In- 
dians, &c, with innumerable testimonials, 
&c. ; which showed Sir Wm. Johnson's char- 
acter in every important station of life, and 
that he merited, greatly merited the warmest 
thanks of his country. [This beats the casu- 
istry of the Puritans of England and Scotland 
towards such Loyalists as the martyr Mon- 
trose.] 

"But when we reflected on Sir John's (his 
son's) conduct, it afforded a contrast not to be 
equalled. Whilst we admired and com- 
mended the wisdom, prudence, patriotic 
spirit, valor and bravery of the father, we 
could but detest and discommend the foolish, 
imprudent, treacherous and base conduct of 
the son, [new terms for Loyalty and Honor !] 
who, instead of walking in the paths of his 
good old father in supporting liberty, [some- 
thing of which Sir William alive had heard 
nothing, and of which he in his grave could 
express no opinion,] and thereby meriting the 
applause of his country, has basely endeavored, 
and is endeavoring, to destroy the liberty and 
property of his native country, [What coun- 
try? The Empire of Great Britain, to which he 
owed his gratitude, duty, Baronetcy and for- 
tune, or the revolted Colonies, of which, being 
dead, he could know nothing, and to whose 
people he owed nothing?] and to cut the 
throats of those who feared, lived and fought 
under the command of his valiant father ; and 
who now (with a degree of tenderness and re- 
spect) are obliged to search the Hall, built by 
the good old, industrious Baronet, to discover 
and detect the young profligate Knight's 
treachery. [To apply this term 'profligate' to Sir 
John is not only an outrage but a stupid abuse 
of language. Sir John was a model husband, 
father, son and subject, against whom not the 
slightest charge of profligacy can be breathed. 



In one sense it might apply to Sir William, 
who, in the strict signification of the word, 
was neither nice nor restrained in his pursuit 
of sensual enjoyment, how r ever great in his 
strict performance of the duties of an officer, 
official and business man.] The Committee re- 
fused having anything to do with Lady 
Johnson until they heard what directions Gen. 
Schuyler should give concerning her. He 
almost acquired the supremacy over the peo- I 
pie here, though at the same time they do not j 
like him; but being in authority and a smart \ 
man withal." 

Albany, May 30, 1776.— Towards evening, 
Lieut. Hagan and Volunteer Kinney, of our 
Company, came to town, walking all the way 
up from Types Hill, near forty miles, to-day. 
* * * * VVe are informed that a party of 
our men at Sir John's, being informed that a 
number of Col. Butler's Indians, &c, were 
coming down to join Charlton at Quebec, went 
out in an escorting party to waylay them as 
they came down ; that they had an engage- 
ment by which many were killed and wound- 
ed on each side, but tfhe particular place or 
situation of the affair is not yet known. Break- 
fasted this morning withoneMr.Halstead,who 
had fled with his wife and six children from 
Quebec just as our men retreated from there. 
He left behind him in possession of the Tories 
all his estate, consisting of £500 sterling worth 
of rum, besides other things of great value. 
He informed that all our friends had shared 
the same fate with him in losing all their 
effects. It would, he says, have been a very 
easy matter last Winter to have taken the 
town; and even now, although it is much 
stronger, three or four hundred might effect 
the stroke, but thinks if they neglect it much 
longer, especially if more troops arrive, it 
will be almost impracticable. Not more than 
200 troops arrived at farthest when our men 
retreated, but we being small and out of heart, 
could not pretend to withstand them. Lodged 
at Mr. Willett's all night. 

Albany, May 31, 1776. — Clear bright morn- 
ing. Arrived here about 8 o'clock, Lreuts. 
Turtle, Loyd, Hazlitt and Ensign Hennion. 
with some of the men to take up our baggage 
and other affairs to Johnstown. * * * 
About busy settling matters and preparing 
for marching to-morrow. The people of this 
place, we understand, have sent in a petition 
to Gen. Schuyler to have us in and about this 
town for the security of the place ; but I think 
it not likely their petition will be granted, 
as we must be more wanted in other places. 

Saturday, June 1st, 1776. — Wet morning 
for marching, .so that we were long pcu-leyinri 
about the matter. However, it slackening in 
some manner, we began to prepare for march- 
ing ; and having all things in readiness about 
4 o'clock p. m. , Ensign Hennion and self set 
out from Albany with Capts. Dickinson, Pot- 
ter and Bloomfield's baggage anil deserters, and 
marched on our way for Johnstown. Just at 
evening we arrived at an Inn, 11 miles, 
at a place called Cripple Bush. The coun 
try thus far is sandy and some low cripples, 
with little other timber growing but pines, and 
those very low and scrubby ; much like the 
country on Egg Harbor [New Jersey]. Some 
few houses along on the road and all public 
ones. Lodged on the floor. Expenses 2s. 9d. 

Sunday, June 2d, 1776. — Set out early in the 
morning on our march, the morning dull and 
heavy. Just as we arrived at Schenectady, 
which is 16 miles from Albany, it began to 



rain very hard and we got very wet; however, 
having got our wagons and prisoners safe, went 
to a tavern and got our breakfast. 
Schenectady is a very fine village, lying 
on the east side of Mohawk river, with 
a large number of stately buildings. At 
10 o'clock ferried over and proceeded on up the 
river within the valley on the river; towards 
evening one of our wagons gave out just at 
the house of [Colonel] Guy Johnson, [British 
Superintendent of Indian Affairs and succes- 
sor of his uncle and father-in-law, Sir William 
Johnson; he married Sir John's sister:] 
a very neat and elegant building, very 
curiously finished off, now lying m a desolate 
condition, whilst its owner is ita England do- 
ing all in his power against his country. 
[Another ridiculous charge. Col. Guv's allegi- 
ance was due to the Crown of England, not 
to its revolted colonists.] It lies about eleven 
or twelve miles from Johnstown. Proceeded 
up as far as Col. Cloas' (who is now in Cana- 
da,) [another son-in-law of Sir William] which 
is about one mile farther up, where we put up 
to stay all night— the dwellers being Irish 
tenants, frankly opened the doors and let us 
have what rooms we pleased. After settling 
matters, I took a walk into the garden, where, 
among curious affairs, is a philosophical en- 
gine, which by a pipe underground, conveys 
the water into the kitchen and then into the 
garden, where is an iron spout, which is 
plugged up, and when taken out the water- 
spouts out with a velocity equal to carry it 
three perches. Iu the evening Lieut. Tuttle 
came up with us and lodged on the floor. 

Monday, June 3d, 1776. — Being flushed for 
want of a wagon, prevented our setting out 
till about 8 o'clock, when we proceeded on to 
Types Hill, where we stopped. When we rise 
the hill our course turns to the north and the 
river to the west, so that we have the river on 
our left hand. The country here is exceed- 
ingly rich and full of timber, which makes it 
very bad clearing; but if it was properly cul- 
tivated, would produce grass, &c, in abun- 
dance. About 12 o'clock we arrived at Johns- 
i town, which consists of one street only, and a 
1 number of small houses with a fine large 
Church and Court House, [built by Sir Wil- 
liam.] About a quarter of a mile "on the 
northwest side of the town stands John- 
son's Hall, a very neat building with 
many outhouses, from which he has 
run off with his brood of Tories, leaving 
the whole in our hands. P. M. By virtue of 
a Proclamation, issued out by Col. Dayton, 
Commander-in-Chief here, all the Tories ap- 
peared and were confined in the Court House, 
and all their names taken, Scotch, Irish, Ger- 
man or American, who stood disaffected [dis- 
contented] with the measures [revolt] the Col- 
onies are now following, many of which are 
tenants to Sir John, which circumstance of 
itself must be sufficient to prove them Tories, 
[another nice fine of argument], as most of 
them are indebted to him. [Any one who will 
reflect on this foolish man's remarks must ar- 
rive at two resulte — First, the loyalty of debtors 
who remained faithful to their duty and obli- 
gations ; when, second, they could pay aU their 
debts by deserting then creditor and becom- 
ing glorious patriots or communists.] There 
were about 100 Tories, as near as I can guess, 
tho' I have not seen the fist since it was com- 
plete. Some of which, however, upon giving 
security, entering bonds, &c, were dismissed. 
How very different it is from being 
here and in our own country [New Jer- 



sey]. Noise and tumult is all we have, and 
ecepeding daily and hourly, if Sir John has 
a sufficient number, to be. attacked — that we 
are obliged to keep constantly upon our guard. 
Received certain intelligence that Gen. Arnold 
with a reinforcement have been up to the 
Cedars on the St. Lawrence for the relief of 
our men who were defeated there, and ran 
upon Col. Butler's army, cut them off and took 
them all prisoners. God grant it may be true. 
Johnstown, Tuesday, June 4th, 1776. — 
Cloudy morning. We appeared out upon 
parade at 9 o'clock. I went in company at 11 
o'clock with Major Hubbell, an Engineer with 
us, Lieuts. Gifford and Hagan to Johnson's 
Hall. We took a view of the out-buildings, 
but did not go into the Hall ; but 
we were admitted into the office by 
the officer of the guard, in which 
is a large number of books and various kinds 
of writing. Many of the officers have taken , 
more or less froni there of books, as well as \ 
other affairs of considerable value. At six 
o'clock I had to mount guard, which consists 
of a captain, first and second lieutenants and 
ensign, three sergeants, three corporals and 
sixty privates, some of which go to the Hall 
and others stay at the Court House, keeping 
sentries to the number of fifteen round it and 
the town to prevent any alarm from our ene- 
mies. Lieut. Tuttle and self were at the Court 
House taking care of the Tories there con- 
fined, which now are reduced to about twenty, 
which are to be sent to Albany to-morrow. 
In the evening fad considerable conversation 
with them, particularly one who was with Sir 
William at the taking of Niagara, 
and has travelled through most of 
those parts. He tells me it lies rather to the 
southwest from this place, distance about 400 
miles from hence. In travelling to which 
they proceed on up the Mohawk River till 
they get to the head, [Fort Stanwix] when they 
have a land carriage of about 1 mile into a 
creek, [Wood] down which they go till it emp- 
ties into a large lake, [Oneida] which carries 
them to Oswego about 200 miles, and from 
thence to Niagara 200 more, which stands 
upon a point of the river, and the large Gara 
Lake, from thence to Detroit is caHed 400 
miles. [Niagara Falls, first described by an 
European, as seen by him, Hennepin, in 1678- 
9. Lieut, de Peyster, afterwards the fa- 
mous Col. Arent Schuyler de Peyster, 8th 
King's Regiment of Foot, B. A. (?), who com- 
manded at Michilimacinac, in 1776, built a saw 
mill near the subsequent site of Judge Porter's 
dwelling, in 1767. Marshall's "Niagara 
Frontier," 1865, page 20.] Not far 
from Niagara, up the river, is the 
great Falls called the Niagara Falls, which 
are 260 feet perpendicular. The fort at Niag- 
ara, he says, is very strong, into which we 
expect Sir John is now fled, [he went to 
Canada] where, with#ut any doubt, he will 
raise as large an army as in his power 
and endeavor to do us all the mischief he is 
capable of: as he has once forfeited his honor 
[a falsehood], [There are very many of the 
ablest military judges who dispute the right of 
usurped authority to impose a valid parole ; 
then arises another, more important question : 
When does such a right to impose a parole 
come into being ; certainly not with incipient 
rebellion.] and fled, he must reasonably ex- 
pect that his estate is confiscated [ah ha ! here 
is the "nigger in the fence," plunder of loyal 
property], and that unless he be able to raise 
an army sufficient to overpower and drive us 



back from here, it will be converted to the 
army and others who have stepped forth in 
defence of their country; and if we can be 
able to bring over those who are on a parley to 
our side and confine the others, or cause them 
to sit neutral in the arffairs, in my weak 
opinion his designs will prove abortive. 
Which may G-od grant! 

[The will of the majority is most often the 
will of a bold minority which realizes Crom- 
well's idea of the best way to keep a popula- 
tion in subjection, viz. : to disarm nine-tenths 
and completely arm the other tenth and in- 
vest it with authority to coerce all the rest in- 
to unanimity. Such a course has often been 
styled "universal patriotic sentiment" m this 
very country. 

''On one occasion he [Cromwell] was upon 
the point with some of the Puritan clergy, who 
told him plainly that the country was against 
him on thfe project to the extent of nine in 
every ten persons. This bold rejoinder threw 
him off his guard, and he replied, 'But if I 
disarm the nine, and there is a sword in the 
hand of the tenth, that might affect the re- 
sult.' He soon saw that his only real support 
was from the army. The security that had 
been obtained from their successes was already 
operating against their interests. It was 
mooted that a diminution of army pay to the 
extent of £1000 a month would now be a just 
economy. Cromwell openly blew the coal of 
discontent at this proposition, and renewed 
the spirit of hatred and contempt of the offi- 
cers against the Parliament. Petitions, or 
rather remonstrances, were daily addressed to 
the House, and they were distinctly desired to 
surrender their power and to separate. — Gen. 
Hon. Sir Edward Oust's "Lives of the War- 
riors," Vol. II., pp. 583-3. Series of 1867.] 

And in the erecting of a fort at German 
Plats, which we are about to do, will still 
contribute to our defence; and however 
important the having possession of Niagara 
may be to us [Sullivan's real objective in 
1779], yet I think it matters but little for the 
present ; and if we can stand our ground here 
and bring over the Indians on our side [al- 
ways hankering after the savage support and 
cursing the British for winning it] time will 
open the door to give us possession of that 
likewise. Slept but little, as I was obliged to 
see that the sentries did their duty and were 
properly relieved; however nothing happened, 
nor any alarm. 

Wednesday, June 5th, 1776. — In the morn- 
ing at parade 50 men, with Capt. Potter and 
3 subalterns, were paraded for a guard to go 
down with the Tories to Albany, that they 
might be dealt with as the General or Com- 
mittee see fit. Accordingly, between 9 and 10 
o'clock they set off with §0 or 40 of the pris- 
oners. There began to be great suspicion 
a iuong the people that the officers had been 
plundering at the Hall, which coming to the 
Colonel's ears, and he making strict inquiry 
and search, it appeared to be true, and that 
to a considerable value. And as a great 
part was taken last night when Capt. * * * 
was Captain of the guard there, which was 
entirely contrary to orders, his place being at 
town, yet pushing himself there made it ap- 
pear very evident that he and Col. * * * 
(as many declared that he took things) were 
confederates and had with Capts. * * * 
and * * * most of the booty, which is 
supposed to be near £500 [$2500]. However, 
after evening roll call, the Colonel desired 



us all to attend in his room; when we got 
there, he informed us that many things were 
taken from the Hall contrary to orders; that 
altho' he did not deem that as the property of 
Sir John, yet we had by no means a right to 
take one farthing's ivorth from there until it 
isproperly confiscated by Congress and deliv- 
ered out in such a manner, or to such use as 
they saw fit, %3g~ that he did not know who 
were guilty of it, neither did he want to know, 
as his duty would then oblige him to cashier 
those ■who were foremost in it ; but as he ima- 
gined it was done inadvertently [innocent 
lambs!] he would therefore request every one 
to return whatever he had got that evening in 
the entry, for which purpose he would order 
the door left open and no one would know 
who brought them.^Jgl This being a method 
which screened the guilty from, any punish- 
ment, shewed the desire the Colonel had of 
not bringing it to light, which ivas exceeding- 
ly favoring; but as he was, no doubt, fully 
convinced in his own mind who were the 
principal ones, and jggphis thus endeavoring 
to hide their faults, so that all would suffer 
equally alike, shewed, in my opinion, a small 
degree of partiality ; and whether he, if it 
should have fallen upon others, would have 
acted in the same manner, time must dis- 
cover. ^JEJ Capt. Bloomfield come up. 

Thursday, June 6th, 1776. — Went out 
upon parade at 8 o'clock and staid 
bill 11, and received the following orders 
from the Colonel : That exercise be attended 
at 6 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon — 
that both officers and soldiers be careful to at- 
tend, unless upon duty — that no man's prop- 
erty be hurt upon anv consideration what- 
ever — that all gaming be set aside, and for the 
future the Colonel hopes to hear no more of 
that bad practice amongst the soldiers. 

I shall insert an order given to Capt. Sharpe 
before we come out: 

Johnstown, May 21th, 1776.— Sir : You are 
to march the party under your command to a 
place called Mayfield. * * * You will like- 
wise secure every place that you think it pos- 
sible Sir John's party can get any supplies 
from. You will then proceed to Socondago 
and apply to Mr. Godfrey Sheve, who will as- 
sist you m finding out theroute Sir John has 
taken, [never discovered to this day] which, as 
soon as you have discovered, you will inform 
me of by express without loss of time. You 
will be careful to prevent a surprise by keep- 
ing a small party ahqad and on the flanks in 
marching, and always planting proper sen- 
tries when you halt. * * * If any number 
of the enemy appear to be near that place, let 
me know of it with all expedition, that you 
may be as soon as possible reinforced. 
I am, Sir, your humble servant, 

Elias Dayton. 

Attended exercise again in the afternoon. 
Although the Colonel desired, and reason re, 
quired, that every person who had taken any- 
thing from the hall should return it last night ; 
yet it appears that not the quarter part was 
brought back. g^T" Some of our fops, whose 
wages will not maintain them in their gaiety, 
are determined to do it from others' effects, I 
believe. „J£I Slept this evening: in a tent with 
Ensign Norcross. 



Monday, June 17th, 1776. 



[p. 127.] 



REGIMENTAL. ORDERS. 

June 17th, 1776. 
Col. Dayton positively orders that every- 
thing taken from Johnson Hall, either by 
officer or soldier, be returned this day to the 
Adjutant or Quarter Master. * * * Had 
exercise at 4 as usual. After exercise I 
(p. 128)Jwas put upon guard and sent over to 
the Hall, where I staid taking particu- 
lar care that nothing went amiss. 
Read some time the History of Eng- 
land. Slept but little. Ancle very lame. 
J3P' Not any time, except when I was there 
upon guard, but something was taken from the 
Hall, especially the cellar door broken open, 
and wine taken; and, notwithstanding the 
positive orders of the Colonel, very little was 
returned Sad aff ai r ! JgM 
* * * Saturday, June 22, 1770.— Unable 
to lie in bed. Very warm days. They 
exercised at 6. Court Martial sitting 
upon two Sergeants who were coavicted of 
taking things belonging to the Hall. Sergeant 
Van Seaman destined to receive lashes and be 
reduced to the ranks. Reprieved by the 
Colonel of the lashes. Took a portion of rhu- 
barb. Nicholas Dean, volunteer in Capt. Pat- 
terson's company, was put under guard for 
pocketing a guinea, and abusing the officers 
when they came in search of it; but, by appli- 
cation to the Colonel, he was taken out and 
pardoned at once. Men paraded again at 6, 
relieved guard, &c. Hardly able to stand. 
No news stirring. 



THE TRUE STORY 0E ORISKANY. 



Sir John Johnson beats Gen. Nicholas 
Herkimer. 



THE DECISIVE 



COLLISION OF THE 
REVOLUTION. 



AMERICAN 



The turning point of the Burgoyne campaign 
and of the American Revolution was the Bat- 
tle of Oriskany, fought on the 6*h of August, 
1777. It was in some respects the Thermopylae 
of America; or rather what St. Jacob on the 
Birs (1444) was to Switzerland — 'the self-sacri- 
fice of a sturdy yeomanry for the maintenance 
of what, being misled, they deemed right. To 
this immolation, the Thirteen Colonies owe 
their success, and if Independence can be traced 
to any one action, it is to Oriskany. 

The British Campaign of 1777 was not a 
simple but a combined operation. To Albany, 
as a common objective, tended the advance of 
Burgoyne from the North, with an army 
something near 10,0U0 strong; of Howe from 
the South, with 17,000 to 20,000 effectives, sol- 
diers and sailors; and St. Leger from the 
West, with a column of 675 regulars and pro- 
vincials — whites — and 700 to 900 auxiliaries — 
Indians and mixed breeds. The part assigned 
to St. Leger was the most important. This 
was the opinion of the British Lieutenant- 
General, Sir Henry Clinton, and also of the 
American Major-General, Nathaniel Greene, 
both generally considered excellent judges of 
strategy. St. Leger should have had at least 
2,000 good white troops, whereas the force 
under him, as a whole, was not only the weak- 
est in quality as to its personal, but the most 
inadequately supplied with artillery and other 
material. 



Burgoyne commenced his march on the 30th 
June ; ascended Champlain ; bridged, cordu- 
royed, and cleared twenty -one miles between 
this Lake and the Hudson, and watered his 
horses in this river on the 28th July. About 
tjhis date, St. Leger's advance appeared before 
Fort Stanwix — the site of the present Rome — 
on the ' 'great portage" between the headwaters 
of the Mohawk and the headwaters of the 
streams which unite with the ocean through 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

About the same time the necessary re- 
pairs of Fort Stanwix were completed, its 
magazines filled, its garrison augmented 
to 950, under Col. Gansevoort and Lieutenant 
Colonels Marinus Willet and Mellon, and sim- 
ultaneously the investment was initiated by 
the advance guard of the British, under Lieut. 
Bird, Eighth Royal (King's Regiment of) Foot 
[Maj: aftrwd Col: Arent S. de Peyster's 
Regiment,] B. A. From Montreal, St. Leger 
ascended the St. Lawrence, crossed Lake On- 
tario to Fort Oswego, moved up the Ononda- 
ga River eastward, traversed Oneida Lake 
and thence proceeded up, and "acheval," 
Wood creek, its feeder. Sixty picked marks- 
men, under Maj. Stephen Watts (of New 
York City), one of Sir Johnson's Batallion of 
Refugees from the Mohawk, known as the 
"Royal Greens," preceded his march and effec- 
tively cleared the way. 

On the 3d August, St. Leger arrived before 
Fort Stanwix and the siege began. 

Amid the mistakes and blunders of this 
campaign, the greatest was sending "Local" 
Brigadier-General [Lt. Col.] St. Leger with 
only 675 whites (Indians counted as nothing in 
such an undertaking) to besiege a regular 
work, held by 950 comparatively good troops. 
Besides this, St. Leger had only a few light 
pieces, barely sufficient to hr./ass and inefficient 
to break or destroy. Still "the Burgoyne 
scare" was upon the colony and nothing had 
been done as yet to dissipate it, to restore con 
fidence, or to demonstrate how baseless was 
the panic. 

['The Albanians were seiaed with a panic, 
the people ran about as if distracted, and sent 
off their goods and furniture."] 

Seeing the importance of relieving Fort 
Stanwix, Nicholas Harkheimer [Herckheimer 
or Herkimer (originally Ergemon?)], Major- 
General N. Y. S. Militia, a brave man although 
not much of a soldier, summoned the males of 
the Mohawk valley, capable of bearing arms, 
to meet on the German Flats at Fort Dayton, 
now bearing his name. He cast his lot in with 
the revolted colony, although his own brother 
was a local Colonel in the British service, 
and many other relations and connections 
as well as friends were in the opposite camp. 
The Militia of the Mohawk rendezvoused at 
Fort Dayton on the very day (3d August) that 
St. Leger actually began the siege of Fort 
Stanwix. The evening of the 5th, Harkheimer 
was at "The Mills" at the mouth of Oriskany 
Creek, some 7 to 9 miles from Fort Stanwix, 
and in communication with the garrison, 
which "was to make a sortie in combination 
with his attack. How many men Harkheimer 
had is a mooted point. American histories 
generally estimate his force at 800. Stedman, 
a veracious and unprejudiced historian, says 
1,000, and this number is corroborated in other 
careful works; Benton, in his History of 
Herkimer County (page 76), 900. It is 
certain that Harkheimer had Indians with 
him belonging to the "Oneida House" or 
tribe of the "Six Nations," but how many is 



no where stated. They were of little account. 
One of them, however, gave the militia the 
best kind of advice, but as usual was not listened 
to. This tribe, or a large portion of it, had 
been detached from the British interest by 
agents of the Albany Committee. Their decis- 
ion resulted unfortunately for them ; while 
they accomplished little for the Americans, 
they brought ruin upon themselves by their 
defection from their ties of centuries. After 
the impending battle, the other Five Nations 
swooped down upon them and nearly de- 
stroyed them. 

Harkheimer moved on the morning of the 
tith August, and immediately fell into an alter- 
cation with his four Colonels and other sub- 
ordinates. He wanted to display some soldier- 
ly caution and send out scouts to reconnoitre 
and throw out flankers to protect, and thus 
feel, as it were, his way through the woods. 
For this his officers, with the effrontery of ig- 
norance and the audacitv of militiamen, styled 
him a "Tory," or "a Traitor" and a "Cow- 
ard." The bickering lasted for hours, until 
Harkheimer, worn out with the persistency of 
the babblers, gave the order to "March on." 
His Oneida Indians should have been most use- 
ful at this conjuncture. But these traitors to 
a confederacy "of ages of glory, 1 ' dreading to 
meet as foes those whom they had deserted as 
friends, clung close to the main body and for- 
got their usual cunning and woodcraft. 

Meanwhile Gen. St. Leger was well aware 
that Harkheimer was on the way to the assist- 
ance of Col. Gansevoort in Fort Stanwix, and 
listened to the counsels of his second in com- 
mand, "Local" Major General, (Col. B. A.) Sir 
John Johnson, and adopted his plan to set a trap 
for the approaching column. Accordingly St. 
Leger detached Sir John with about 80 Jagers 
or Hesse-Hanau Riflemen, British Regulars and 
some Provincials or Rangers with Butler and 
Brant (Thayendanega) and his Indians. Sir 
John established an ambush about two miles 
West of Oriskany. Just such an ambuscade 
under the partisans, de Beaugeu and Langlade, 
absolutely annihilated Braddock in 1755; just 
such, again, under the same Langlade — had he 
been listened to by Regular Superiors — would 
have ruined Pitt's grand conceptions for the 
conquest of the Canadas by destroying the 
forces under Wolfe on the Montmorency, be- 
low Quebec, 31st July, 1759. 

Harkheiiner had to cross a deep, crooked 
ravine with a marshy bottom and 
dribble, spanned by a causeway and bridge 
of logs. Sir John completely enveloped this 
spot with marksmen, leaving an inlet for 
the entrance of the Americans but no 
outlet for their escape. Moreover he 
placed his best troops — whites — on the road 
westward where real fighting, if any oc- 
curred, had to be done and to bar all access 
to the fort. 

No plans were ever more judicious either 
for a battue of game or an ambuscade for 
troops. Harkheimer's column, without scouts, 
eclaireurs, or flankers, plunged into the ravine 
and had partially cliinbed the opposite crest 
and attained the plateau, when, with his 
wagon train huddled together in the bottom, 
the surrounding forest and dense underwood 
was alive with enemies and alight with the 
blaze of muskets and rifles, succeed- 
ed by yells and war whoops, just 
as the shattering lightning and the terrify- 
ing thunder are almost simultaneous. 

Fortunately for the Americans, the Indians 
anticipated the signal to close in upon them . 



The savages showed themselves a few mo- 
ments too soon, so that Harkheimer's rear- 
guard was shut out of the trap instead of in, 
and thus had a chance to fly. They ran, but 
in many cases they were outrun by the 
Indians and suffered almost as severely as 
their comrades whom they had abandoned. 
Then a slaughter ensued such as never had oc- 
curred upon this continent, and if the en- 
trapped Americans engaged had not shown 
the courage of desperation they would 
all have been lost. But Heaven inter- 
posed at the crisis and sent down a delug- 
ing shower which stopped the slaughter, 
since, in the day of flint locks, firing amid 
torrents of rain was an impossibility. This 
gave the Americans time to recover their 
breath and senses. Harkheimer very early 
in the action was desperately wounded in the 
leg by a shot which killed his horse. He 
caused his saddle to be placed at the foot of a 
beech tree, and, sitting upon it and propped 
against the trunk, he lit his pipe and, while 
quietly smoking, continued to give orders and 
make dispositions which saved all that escaped. 
His orders on this occasion were perhaps the 
germ of the best subsequent rifle tactics. He 
behaved like a hero and perished a martyr to 
his ideas of Liberty, dying hi his own home at 
"Danube," two miles below Little Falls 
("Little Portage"), ten days after the 
engagement in consequence of a bunglaig 
amputation and subsequent ignorant treat- 
ment. The monument he so richly deserved, 
which was voted both by Congress and his 
State, to the eternal disgrace of both, has 
never been erected, and this grand representa- 
tive yeoman New Yorker has no public memo- 
rial of his qualities and services. 

When the shower was about over, Sir John 
Johnson seeing that the Indians were 
yielding, sent back to camp for a reinforce- 
ment of his "Royal Greens" under his 
brother-in-law Maj. Stephen Watts or else St. 
Leger sent them to end the matter more 
speedily. These, although they disguised 
themselves like Mohawk Valley Militia, were 
recognized by the Americans as brothers, rela- 
tives, connections or neighbors whom Hark- 
heimer's followers had assisted in driving into 
exile and povertry. These Loyalists were 
presumably coming back to regain what 
they had lost and to punish if 
victorious. At once to the fury of battle 
was added the bitterness of mutual hate, 
spite, and vengeance. If the previous fighting 
had been murderous the subsequent was hor- 
rible. Fire arms, as a rule, were thrown aside, 
the two forces mingled, they grasped each 
other by the clothes, beards, and hair, slashed 
and stabbed with their hunting knives, and 
were found in pairs locked in the embrace of 
hatred and death. 

There is now no longer the slightest doubt 
that Sir John Johnson commanded the British 
Loyalists and Indians at Oriskany. Only one 
original writer ever questioned the fact, 
whereas all other historians agree in estab- 
lishing it. The reports of St. Leger not only 
prove the presence of Sir John Johnson in 
command, but they praise his able disposi- 
tions for the ambuscade or battle. Family 
tradition — a sure index to the truth if not 
the very truth iteelf — and contemporar}' pub- 
lications remove every doubt. His brother- 
in-law. Major Stephen Watts, of New York 
City, dangerously wounded, appears to have 
been second in command, certainly of the 
Whites, and most gallantly prominent in the 



bloodiest, closest fighting. He, like Hark 
heimer, besides receiving other terrible i 
wounds, lost his leg in this action, but unlike 
the latter, under equally disadvantageous cir- 
cumstances, preserved his life. 

["Major (Stephen) Watts was wounded 
through the leg by a ball (he eventually lost 
his limb), and in the neck by a thrust from a 
bayonet which passed through, back of the 
windpipe and occasioned such an effu 
sion of blood as to induce not only him but his 
captors to suppose (after leading him two or 
three miles) that he must die in consequence. 
He begged his captors to kill him ; they refused 
and left him by the side of a stream under the 
shade of a bridge (across Oriskany Creek), 
where he was found two days subsequently 
covered with fly-blows, but still alive. He wa > 
borne by some Indians to Schenectady (Oswe- 
go and then by boat to Montreal), where he re- 
mained until sufficiently recovered to endure a 
voyage to England, where he was often after 
seen limping about Chelsea Hospital. The 
sash taken from him is still in possession of 
the Sanders family." "Legacy of Historical 
Gleanings." Vol 1. Pages 69-7.0.] 

["The soldier who carried the Major to the 
stream — and received the (Major's) watch as a 
reward — was named Failing, a private in Gen. 
Herkimer's [own, or original] regiment. He 
sold the watch for $300, Continental money, 
to his Lieutenant, Martin G. Van Alstyn, who 
would never part with it, &c. M. G. Van 
Alstyn was 1st Lieutenant, in the 7th Com- 
pany, General Herkimer's [own, or original] 
regiment, and was a great uncle of mv [F. H. 
Roof of Rhinebeck, N. Y.'s ] father. He lived 
until 1830. My father, now aged 75, remem- 
bers the watch well, and has often mentioned 
the incident to me, as related to him by his 
uncle. "] 

Without attempting to develop the complete- 
ness of this fratricidal butchery, it may be 
stated as one curious fact that Harkheimer's 
brother was not only, according to some nar- 
ratives, a titular British Colonel, but a sort 
of Quartermaster to St. Leger, and especial- 
ly charged with the supervision of the Indian 
auxiliaries who were the cause of the Gener- 
al's death and the slaughter of so many of 
their common kinsmen, connections, friends 
and neighbors. 

All the Revolutionary battles on New York 
soil were, more or less.' family collisions, and 
realized the boast which Shakespeare, in the 
closing lines of his Tragedy of King John 
puts in the mouth of the valiant bastard, 
Falconbridge. 
"This England [New York] never did (nor never 

shall) 
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror 
But when it first did help to wound itself 

****** 

Come the three corners of the world in arms 
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us 

rue 
If England [New York] to itself do rest but true 1" 
This savage affair crazed even the Indians. 
It outstripped their own ferocity. They lost 
their heads — went mad like wild animals at 
the sight and smell of blood. They came to 
the conclusion that the white men had 
lured them into this very hell of fire and 
slaughter to exterminate them. The arena of 
battle became a niaalstrom of bloodshed, and 
the Indians tomahawked and stabbed friend 
and foe alike, and in the wild whirl and 
cataclysm of passions, more powerful than 
thefr own, suffered a loss which appalled even 
the fell instincts of the savage. 



As an American, and, especially as a Knick- 
erbocker, the historian cannot but rejoice in 
th9 determination exhibited by the people of 
his State and kindred blood and of this oppor- 
tunity of demonstrating it. Still, as a chroni- 
cler of events, there is no evading the concur- 
rent testimony of facts; of Kapp's History of 
his People (i. e., the Dutch and German set- 
tlers of the Mohawk Valley), and of St. Le- 
ger's Reports. All of these concur in the evi- 
dence, direct and circumstantial, that Hark- 
heimer's little army suffered a tactical disas- 
ter. That this did not remain a defeat 
and was converted (as was Monmouth) 
eventually into a moral triumph and 
political, as well as a strategical, suc- 
cess, was due to the common-sense com- 
mandeirship of Harkheimer. According to his 
plan, the advance and attack of his column of 
Mohawk Valley men was to be a combined 
movement, based upon, or involving, a simul- 
taneous sortie from Fort Stanwix. This sortie 
was not made in time to save Harkheimer's 
life or the loss of about two-thirds of his com- 
mand, killed and wounded or prisoners. Noth- 
ing preserved the survivors of Harkheimer's 
column but the deluging "shower of blessing." 
When the flood began to abate, and not until 
then, did Willet take advantage of the storm 
to make his sortie and attack that por- 
tion of St. Leger's lines which had been 
stripped to co-operate in the ambush set for 
Harkheimer. The siege works, or lines of in- 
vestment — to apply a formal term to very 
trifling imitations — were very incomplete. 
To style them "lines of investment" is a mis 
namer. St. Leger's three batteries — the first, 
three light guns; the second, four diminutive 
mortars; the third, three more small guns — 
were totally inadequate for siege purposes, 
whereas there were fourteen pieces of artil- 
lery mounted in the fort. The redoubts to cover 
the British batteries, St. Leger's line of ap- 
proaches and his encampment were all on the 
north side of the fort. These were occupied 
by 450 to 500 regulars and Provincials. 
Sir John Johnson's works, held by 
from 130 to 175 Loyalist troops, were to the 
southward. It was against these last, entirely 
denuded of their defenders, that Willet made 
his sortie. St. Leger's works, and those of 
Sir John Johnson, were widely separated and 
independent of each other, and the intervals, 
to make the circuit of the investment appar- 
ently complete, were held, or rather patrolled, 
by the Indians, who, however, during the sor- 
tie, were all away ambuscading and assaulting 
Harkheimer. Consequently, Willet's sortie, 
however successful in its results as to material 
captured, and as a diversion, was utterly de- 
void of peril. That he had time to plunder Sir 
John Johnson's camp, and three times send out 
seven wagons, load them, and send them back 
into the post, without the loss of a man, is un- 
answerable proof that he met with no opposi- 
tion. He surprised and captured a small 
squad of prisoners (?) — five, an officer (com- 
missioned or non-commisioned) and four pri- 
vates — and saw a few dead Indians and whites 
but nowhere does it appear whether they had 
been killed by the fire from the fort or in the 
attack. All the merit that belongs to his sor- 
tie, in a military point of view, is the fact, 
that to save whatever material Willet did not 
have time to remove, Sir John Johnson had to 
extricate and hurry back his "Royal Greens" 
from the battle ground of Oriskany four to 
five and a half miles away ; leaving the stage 
of collision with the expectation that the com- 



pletion of the bloody work would be effectually 
performed by the Indians. These, however, 
had, already, got their fill of fighting, and to 
this alone was due the result so fortunate for 
the survivors of Harkheimer's column, that its 
remnant was left in possession of the field, 
soaked with their blood and covered with their 
dead and wounded. The glory of Ori^kany 
belongs to the men of the Mohawk Valley, only 
in that although they were " completely en- 
trapped." they defended themselves with 
such desperation for five or six. hours, 
and finally displayed so much restored 
courage that they were able to ex- 
tricate even a few fragments from the 
slaughter pit. That Willet captured " five 
British standards" or five British stand of 
colors is not probable ; scarcely possible. They 
may have been camp colors or markers. The 
regimental colors are not entrusted to 
driblet detachments from regiments. The 
"Royal Greens" may have had a color, a 
single flag, although this is very doubtful, be- 
cause, at most, they constituted a weak bat- 
talion. The colors of the Eighth or King's 
Regiment of Foot were certainly left at head- 
quarters, likewise those of the British Thirty- 
fourth.* The same remark applies to the 
Hesse-Hauau Chasseurs — a company of Jagers 
or Riflemen would certainly have no 
flags. 

As still further proof of this view taken, 
the camp of the British Regulars, proper, was 
not attacked. The fact is, the American 
story of' Willet's sortie has an atmosphere of 
myth about it. St. Leger's report to Bur- 
goyne, and likewise to his immediate superior, 
Carleton — the latter the most circumstantial — 
present the most convincing evidence of 
truthfulness. St. Leger writes to Carleton : 

"At this time [when Harkheimer drew nearl / 
had not 250 of the King's troops in camp, the 
various and the extensive operations I was under 
an absolute necessity of entering mto having 
employed the rest: and therefore [I] could not 
send [originally] above 80 white men,rangers and 
troops included, with the whole corps of Indians. 
Sir John Johnson pur. himself at the head of this 
party. * * * 

In relation to the victory [over Harkheimer], it 
was equally complete as if the whole [of the Amer- 
cans] had fallen; nay, more so, as the 200 [out of 
800 or 900 or 1,000] who escaped served only to si iread 
the panic wider, but it was not so with the Indians, 
their loss was great. I must be understood In- 
dian computation, being only about 30 killed and 



*In corroboration of this view of the subject, 
take the concluding paragraph of Washington's 
letter of July 20, 1779, to the President of Congress, 
reporting the capture of Stoney Point, on the 
night of the 15-16th July, 1770. In this paragraph 
he states that "two standards" were taken:, "one 
belonging to the garrison [this was not a stan- 
dard-proper, but what is technically called a gar- 
rison flag] and one [a standard proper] to the 
Seventeenth Regiment." Stoney Point was held 
by a British force only a few less than the white 
besieging force before Fort Stanwix. The garri- 
son was composed of detachments from four dif- 
ferent regular organizations, and yet these had 
only one standard, proper, which belonged to the 
Seventeenth. Of this regiment there were six 
companies, the majority in the works, where also 
the Lieut. -Colonel commanding had his perma- 
nent quarters. 

+As everything in regard to these occurrences is 
interesting, the following translation of von 
Eelking's "Deutschen Hulfstruppen" (I., 3.33) is 
presented in regard to the Hesse-Hanau Jager 
or Rifle company attached to St. Leger's com- 
mand: 



wounded, and in that number some of their favor 
ite chiefs and confidential warriors were slain. 
* * * As I suspected, the enemy [Willet] made 
a sally with 350 men towards Lieut. Bird's post to 
facilitate the entrance of the relieving corps or 
bring on a general engagement with every advan- 
tage they could wish. * * * 

Immediately upon the departure of Captain 
Hoyes I learned that Lieut. Bird, misled by the 
information of a cowardly Indian that Sir John 
was prest, had quitted his post to march to 
his assistance. I commanded the detachment 
of the King's regiment in support of 
Captain Hoybs by a road in sight of the 
garrison, which, with executive fire from his 
party, immediately drove the enemy into the 
fort without any further advantage than fright- 
ening some squaws and pilfering the packs of the 
warriors which they left behind, them.'''' 

It was Harkheimer who knocked all the 
fight out of the Indians, and it was the deser- 
tion of the Indians, and this alone, that ren- 
dered St. Leger's expedition abortive. 

In summing up it should be borne in mind 
that St. Leger had only 675 Regulars and 
Provincials in addition to his ten light guns 
and diminutive mortars to besiege a fort, well 
supplied, mounting fourteen guns, garrisoned 
with 750 at least and according to most author- 
ities 950 troops of the New York Line, i. e. , to 
a certain degree, Regulars. 

Nevertheless, St. Leger continued to press 
the siege, with at most 650 whites against 750 
to 950 whites, from the 6th until the 22d 
August, and, when he broke up and retreated 
at the news of Arnold's approach with a force 
magnified by rumor, it was almost altogether 
on account of the infannotis conduct of the 
Indians. All the evidence when sifted justi- 
fies his remarks that the Indians "became 
more formidable than the enemy we had to 
expect." By enemy, he meant Arnold's 
column hastening his march against him and 
the garrison in his immediate front, and yet 
neither St. Leger nor Burgoyne underesti- 
mated the American troops — not even the 
Militia, especially when fighting under cover 
or behind works. 

The gist of all this lies in one fact — it was not 
the defense of Fort Stanwix, but the self-devo- 
tion and desperation of Harkheimer's militia 
that saved the Mohawk Valley and constitutes 
Oriskany ttie Thermopylae of the American 
Revolution; the crisis and turning point against 
the British ;+ of the Burgoyne Campaign ; and 
the "Decisive Conflict" of America's Seven 
Yearn War for Independence. 



"Finally it is proper to commemorate in detail 
an evontin connection with this campaign which 
we have alluded to or treated already more at 
length ; the flanking expedition undertaken, as a 
side-issue, against Fort Stanwix. The Jager or 
rifle company which was assigned to him 
was the first that the Count of Hesse- 
Hanau sent over to America. It left Hanau 7th 
May, 1777, and reached Canada 11th of June. It 
was at once sent forward by the Governor [Carle- 
ton] to join the troops which bad already started 
up the St. Lawrence and assigned to the column of 
St. Leger. It was commanded by Lieut. Hilde- 
brand. The march through these distant and 
sparsely settled districts was long and very labor- 
ious, accompanied with all kinds of dangers and 
obstacles. In order to avoid the almost impene- 
trable wilderness, a greater circuit was made 
across Lake Ontario. The Corps of St. Leger, 
comprising detachments from so many different 
organizations, started in the beginning of July 
from the neighbourhood of Montreal as soon as 
the expected Indian force had been assembled 
there. The transportation in flat boats 
150 miles up the river was very slow; 
the more so because, every now and then, the 



ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN 

Sir Join J 



NEAR FOX'S MILLS OE AT KLOCK'S FIELD, 
19th October, 1780. 

PROCEEDINGS OF A COURT OF INQUIRE 

UPON THE CONDUCT OF 

General Robert van Renssellaer. 

["The Northern Invasion of October, 1780, 
* * against the frontier of New York" * * 
by Franklyn B. Hough, (Bradford Club Series, 
No. 6,)N. Y, 1866. Pages 166-208. Consult Map 
"Routes of the Northern Invasions of 1780," 
opp: 65.] 

At a Court of Enquiry held at the city 
of Albany, on the 12th day of March, 1781, to 
enquire into the conduct of Brigadier-General 
Robert Van Renssellaer, on the incursions of 
the enemy into Tryon County, in October 
last, pursuant to general orders of his Excel- 
lency Governor Clinton: 

Present: Brig'r General Swart wout, [ap- 
pointed 3d March, 1780, Duchess Co. Militia] 
President. 

Colonels, Thomas Thomas [appointed 28th 
May, 1778. Westchester Co. Militia]. John 
Cantine [promoted 21st February, 1778, Ulster 
Co. Militia]— Members. 

The court met, and adjourned till to-mor- 
row afternoon at 5 o'clock. 

Tuesday, March 13th, 1781. The court met 
pursuant to adjournment. 

Colo: [Tryon Co: Militia] John Harper then 



boats had to be taken ashore and carried by hand 
around the rapids or cataracts. Having overcome 
the difficulties of the river the route lay across 
the broad Ontario Lake to Fort Oswego on the 
south shore. There a day was devoted to rest in 
order that the troops might recover to some ex- 
tent from the exhaustion produced by their pre- 
vious exertions. Thence the route followed a 
stream [Oswego river] and a small lake [Oneida] 
inland in a southerly direction; [thence a cheval, 
and up, Wood Creek] the troops marched to the 
Mohawk on which stood Fort Stanwix held by the 
enemy [Americans]. The march was extremely 
laborious, since not only natural difficulties had to 
be overcome, but also the artificial obstacles which 
the Americans had placed in the way to hinder the 
advance of their opponents. 

On the 3d August, the Fort— after the garrison 
had rejected the demand for a surrender— was 
assaulted without success. On the 5th, a relieving 
column of nearly 1,000 men drew near, St. Leger 
was aware of its approach in time, and for its re- 
ception [Sir John Johnson | placed an ambuscade 
in the woods. This, for the greater part consisted 
of regular troops and among these were the 
Hesse-Hanau Jagers. The rest were Indians. 

[This account differs from every one hitherto 
examined, and shows even yet we are not ac- 
quain tied with some of the most interesting facts 
of this momentous conflict. St. Leger in his of- 
ficial report expressly states that he did not send 
over 80 white men. Rangers and troops included, 
with the whole corps of Indians, and that Sir John 
Johnson was in command. The discrepany, how- 
ever, is easily reconcilable with what has been 
hitherto stated and explains the late arrival of the 
'•Johnson'' or "Royal Greens." These latter must 
have remained in camp to hold the garrison in 
check. When the Indians began to slink out of 
the fight, the Royal Greens must have been hurried 
to the scene of action, leaving their line to the 
south of the Fort entirely destitute of defenders. 
This established what the writer has always claim- 
ed, that Willet encountered no opposi- 



appeared before them and offered in evidence 
against Gen. Rensselaer a copy of a letter 
written by John Lansing, Jr., Esq., by order 
of the General, to Colo. Lewis Dubois, in 
these words, vizt: 

(Village of Fultonville), Van Eps, Oaghna- - 
wago, 19th Octo., 1780. 

Sir: We are here, with a force sufficient to 
cope with the enemy, but if you can possibly 
co-operate with us it will in all probability 
tend to insure us success. Gen. Renssellaer, 
who commands here, therefore advises you to 
march down along the south side of the 
[Mohawk] river, with all the men you have, 
with as much expedition as possible. He in- 
tends to attack the enetny as soon as the day 
appears. It depends on your exertions to 
favor this enterprise. I am, Sir, yours, 
By order of Gen. Rensselaer, 

Colo. Dubois. J. Lansing, Jr. 

Colo. John Harper being then sworn, says, 
That on the 19th of October, he was 
under the command of General Rensse- 
laer, on the Mohawk river: That he 
commanded a party of Indians on the 
south side of the Mohawk river, east of 
Fort Plane, or Rensselaer [half a mile W 
of present village of Fort Plain] : That he was 
under the immediate command of Colo. Dubois : 
That in the morning of the 19th October they 
proceeded down the river until they heard an 
engagement which happened on the north 
side of the river, between a detachment of 
troops under the command of Colo. John 
Brown, and the enemy under Sir John John- 
son: That upon hearing the tiring, Colo. Dubois 
ordered the greater part of the New York 
Levies, under his immediate command, and the 



tion at all in his sortie and that the 
ordinary account of it is no better than a 
myth. Furthermore, everything demonstrates 
irrefutably the total unreliability of the Indians 
as fighters; and that the failure of St. Leger s ex- 
pedition is entirely attributable to the misconduct 
of these savages. Finally, since the Burgoyne ex- 
pedition depended on St. Leger's success, and his 
utter military bankruptcy is chargeable to the In- 
dians; and to them alone, therefore — as 
it is clearly shown — the whole British Com- 
bined Operations of 1777 ended in a catas- 
trophe, tnrough a fatal overestimate of the value 
of Indians as a fighting power; or as auxiliaries 
wherever any hard fighting had to be done, or for 
any useful purpose whatever involving persever- 
ance.] 

"The surprise was such a perfect success scarce- 
ly one-half the mflitia escaped. While St. Leger 
had thus scattered his troops, the besieged made 
a sortie and plundered his camp. This was a 
grievous loss to him; because in these almost 
desert districts pretty much all the necessities of 
life had to be carried [along with a column] ; since 
the British troops were wanting in artillery and 
since a second relieving column, 2,000 strong, was 
approaching under the audacious Gen. Arnold, 
which threw the Indians into such certain terror 
that they either scattered or besought that they 
might be led back again. In consequence of [all] 
this, St. Leger had to break up the siege on the 23 
August, and, abandoning tents, guns and stores, 
retreat at once. 

"So ended this operation wKich s if it had turned 
out more successfully, would, in. any event, have 
prevented the tragic fate of Burgoyne 's army.'''' 

If the disinterested German soldier and histor- 
ian, von Eelking, does not demonstrate that the 
success of Burgoyne depended on that of St. 
Leger, and that this was completely frustrated by 
Oriskany, thus making Oriskany the turning 
point of the American Revolution— words are in- 
adequate to express the truth. 



Indians commanded by the witness, to cross to 

the north side of the river to support Colo. 
Brown's detachm nt, when some men of 
that detachment which had been defeated 

and dispersed, came to the river, and crossed 
it, and gave the deponent informa- 
tion of the state of Colo. Brown's party. 
That upon hearing that Colo. Brown was de- 
feated, the deponent informed Colo. Dubois of 
the disaster, and that the whole of the detach- 
ment of levies and Indians or part of them, 
who had crossed to support Colo. Brown, re- 
crossed to the south side. That Colo. Dubois 
then informed the deponent that General 
Rensselaer was below, and requested him 
to ride down to the Gen), and advised 
him of the fate of Brown's detach- 
ment, which he accordingly did. That 
he found General Rensselaer halted about 
a mile below Fort Rensslaer [or Port 
Plain]. That he entreated the General to 
march on: That he informed him there was a 
fordnear at hand, about knee deep, where the 
troops might cross: That he urged the 
general to attack the enemy at all 
events: That the general informed him 
he did not know the enemy's numbers, 
nor the route they intended to take : That he 
told the general that if the enemy took the 
same route which they did when they came, 
they could do us no more injury than they had 
already done, or, if he shoiild go thro' Johns- 
town, they would hurt their friends and not 
ours. That the general then told him, that he 
would go to Colo. Dubois and advise with him : 
and that he attended the General there : That 
he is ignorant of what passed between Colo. 
Dubois and the general, but that the levies and 
Indians with some of the Tryon county militia, 
recrossed to the north side of the river, either by 
the General's, or Colo. Dubois' orders :— the de- 
ponent supposed it to have been by the Gene- 

■ ral's orders. 

That while the detachment under Col. Du- 

' hois, and the Indians and Militia were crossing, 
the GenU and Colo. Dubois went to Fort Ren- 
selaer and there dined. That they returned 
to the bank of the river, and there stood at 
the ferry [John Walrod's Ferry opposite Fort 
Plain] for a considerable time after the Levies 
and Indians had crossed: That the deponent 
came to the north bank of the river and hailed 
the G-en'l, entreating him for God's sake to 
cross, but he received no reply. That the de- 
ponent believes the levies and Indians had all 
crossed about 1 o'clock, and that he believes 
it was near three hours thereafter, before the 
immediate command of General Rensselaer, 
(who had crossed about a mile below,) came up 
to the ferry, where the levies and Indians re- 
mained paraded. That when the militia 
came up, the whole of the troops were divided 
into three columns and marched to attack the 
enemy Col. Dubois with the levies on the 
right,the Albany militia <m the left, and that he 
doesnot know whocoinmanded the central col- 
it m n com posed of whites and Indians. That the 
deponent commanded the Indians, in advance of 
the centre column. That after advancing some 
distance, he was met by an Indian who in- 
formed him that the enemy were near at 
hand; and that the enemy's force was about 
400 white men ami hut few Indians (1); which 
the deponent in person immediately communi- 
cated to Genl Rensselaer, then at the head of 
the centre column, and then returned to his 
command, without receiving any further 
orders from the general. That after advan- 
cing about half a mile, his party fell in with, 



and began to skirmish with the enemy's rear- 
guard, who were then retreating up the river. 
That part of the centre column also fell in 
with that part of the enemy. That the enemy 
then chanucd their front, came down the 
river and engaged [attacked] our left, and 
commenced a regular, and hear \i platoon fir- 
ing on them: But that our left, not being 
pressed,fired irregularly, anil were beatback, 
butadvanced again a ml continued firing ir- 
regularly. That at this juncture the enemy 
attempted to gain and secure the ford. That 
thereupon part of the centre column filed off 
to the right and joined Colo. Dubois' detach- 
ment who attempted to gain the enemy's left 
flank, and the remainder continued, with five 
of the Indians, advancing in the centre. That 
soon after a heavy fire commenced, and was 
continued on the right,which the deponent has 
since been informed, happened between Colo. 
Whiting [commd. 16th June, 1778] and 
the enemy. That when lite firing on the eight 
commenced, it was quite dusk, and the detach- 
ment under Colo Dubois had gamed the ene- 
my's left, and they were fording the river. 
That he was then informed by Colo. Dubois, 
that the general had ordered a- retreat, and 
was requested by the Colonel to communicate 
it to Major Betischoten [of N. Y. Regt: raised 
for defence of frontiers, 1st July, 1780]. That he 
did not receive orders to retire, till the enemy 
had crossed to the south side of the river. That 
when he went in search of Major Benschoten, 
he found some of the. troops comjoosed of 
Tryon militia and levies, plundering. That 
he forbid it, and ordered the Indians to remain 
in close quarters, least some accident might 
happen to them. 

Question by the Genl. How was you in- 
formed that the enemy had crossed ? 

Answer. ' When I was in quest of Major 
Benschoten, I was informed by many people, 
who were on the ground, that the enemy had 
crossed. 

Quest : Did you see me after that 3 

Ans : No, sir. 

Quest: Did you send me any information 
that the enemy had crossed the river ? 

Ans : I did not. 

Quest. pIP Did our troops engage the 
enemy asthey were first formed and advanced? 

Ans. ISP No. 

Quest. Do you not recollect that you came 
to me before the skirmishing began, and re- 
quested that the Indians might go in the rear 
of the centre column? 

Ans. I do not. 

Quest. Did you observe the militia on the 
left tube in great confusion when the firing 
commenced? 

Ans. I did. 

Mr, William Harper being then sworn, says. 
That he was at Schenectady on the evening of 
the 17th of October, when Genl Rensselaer 
arrived there" with the militia, and they dis- 
covered the lights of fires at the lower end 
of Schoharie, where they had received infor- 
mation that the enemy were burning. That 
he was informed the militia under the general 
were to march the next morning. 
That the militia remained in Schenectady 
till it was late in the morning. That the depo- 
nent, being impatient, went on to the Willi per. 
about fourteen miles above Schenectady, where 
l ie received information that the enemy were 
burning at the Cadorotty [a mile or two up 
Schoharie Creek, on the east side], about a 
mile above Fort Hunter. That the express who 
came from Fort Hunter to Genl. Rensselaer 






was forwarded by the dept. That the 
Genl and troops soon came on. That it was 
near sunset when they rec'd information 
of the enemy's being at Warrenbush. [War- 
retibush was the name applied to a tract of 
some 15, 000 acres of land, mostly in the pres- 
ent town of Florida, Montgomery County, 
owned by Sir Peter Warren, an uncle of Sir 
William Johnson.] That the troops were or- 
dered to halt at Elliott's at the Old Farm 
That the Grenl applied to the deponent, 
to procure a reconnoitering party to discover 
the number, situation and movements of the 
enemy. That he procured them and waited 
on the Genl. That the Genl tcld him 
he would consult with his field officers, and 
that thereupon he sent a Sergeant, Wm. 
Wood, with seven or eight men to reconnoitre 
the enemy. That the depont accompanied 
the party to Fort Hunter, and from thence, he 
with one man went to Anthony's Nose, where 
the enemy hrd their camp. That they re- 
turned with all possible dispatch to the 
General, whom they found advanced with 
the troops as far as Gardinier's Flats [a short 
distance below Fulton ville], about fourrnda 
half miles above Fort Hunter, and 20 above 
Schenectady, about twelve o'clock at 
night or after. That he informed the 
general of the enemy's situation, and 
that the Genl continued advancing 
with the troops to Van Eps, about half 
or three-fourths of a mile. That the Gen. 
then ordered letters to be written to the offi- 
cers commanding at Fort Plane or Rensselaer, 
and Stone Arabia and they were given in 
charge to Lt Wm Wallace. That the 
\Genl and troops remained at Van Ep's 
between two and three hours, and that soon 
after the inarch the day broke. That the 
troops, marched about four miles, to Peter 
Lewis' [at Stone Ridge near the W line of 
the town of Glen] where the whole halted 
about ten or twelve minutes for the purpose 
of examining a prisoner taken by our advance 
party. That the troops were marched two 
or three miles to Putnam's Land, where tin- 
whole body halted a considerable time, and 
the advance part] i were on or near the ground 
where the enemy had halted that night. That 
the deponent went to the Genl and urged 
to him that the troops might be ordered to 
march, but the Genl answered that he 
must first furnish the troops with cartridges. 
That soon after leave was obtained for Major 
McKinster with the advance party to march. 

That while the troops were halted there, 
Col. Louis had been sent out to reconnoitre 
whether the enemy did not remain at the 
Nose, [Anthony's] to ambuscade Genl Rens- 
selaer's troops. 

[This makes out a curious victory as claimed 
for the Americans at Klock's Field, since the 
victors (sic) were afraid of the vanquished.] 

(C©1. Louis Cook was an Indian from Caugh- 
nawaga village, near Montreal, who had join- 
ed the American army, and had received a 
commission as Lieutenant -colonel. His In- 
dian name was Atiatonhaironkwen. He after- 
wards lived at St. Regis. He died near Buf- 
falo, towards the close of the war of 1812-'15. — 
Hough's History of St. Lawrence and Frank- 
lin Counties, p. 182.) 

That the advanced party under [the veter- 
an] Major McKinster, marched on to lame 
Corn's Van Alstyne's, and that he and the 
major discovered the enemy drawn up on the 
opposite side of the river at John Saxe's house. 
That the road at the [Anthony's] Nose was 



very bad, so as to render it difficult to come 
up with artillery. That Major McKinster's 
party halted about an hour at Van Alstyne's 
before the main body came up. That as soon as 
the main body arrived, the whole marched 
about a mile, to another Corns Van Als- 
tyne's; and on their ariival there 
they heard a firing between Colo 
Brown's detachment and the enemy. 
That the Genl. enquired from the deponent 
the best place to ford the river. That upon 
trial at Major Yale's it was found impractica- 
ble. That they then marched on to Adam 
Countryman's ab't one and a half miles, 
where the whole of the troops halted and an- 
other party was ordered to advance. That 
the troops "had been there about half an hour 
when Colo [John] Harper came to the Genl and 
gave him an accot of Colo. Brown's disaster. 
That it was full three hours from that time, 
before the troops under Genl Rensslaer 
crossed and came up to Walrod's Ferry. 
That Genl Rensslaer went up to Walrod's 
Ferry on the south side of the river, but when 
deponent knows not. That the General 
stood at the ferry, and was pressed and in- 
treated by him, Colo Harper and others to 
cross the river, and attack the enemy, but 
that he gave no answer, nor came over, till 
his militia had joined Colo Dubois' command. 
That after the troops had joined, they were 
crowded into three columns, the right com- 
manded by Colo Dubois. That about 
sunset or after, the enemy came down 
out of the woods to Philan's orchard, 
when a skirmishing began between 
our left and the enemy in the lowlands. 
That our left was much disordered, and fired 
very {irregularly and never were in order 
after firing commenced. That the rear of our 
left w : as about five hundred yards from the 
enemy when the front began their firing at 
about two hundred and fifty [yards] and the 
whole kepted up a brisk fire towards the 
enemy. That he saw several officers (and 
particularly Adjt Van Veghten of Colo 
Cuyler's reg't), exert themselves to bring on 
the troops, and to prevent their running 
away, but that theywere notable to bring up 
/)<<• men so close to action as to annoij the 
en emy. That the confusion took place as soon 
as the firing commenced, and that it was 
pretty dark before it ceased. That about the 
time when the firing on our part ceased, the 
Dept saw the Genl with the left column. 
That the Genl informed him, that as 
it was dark, and dangerous to let the 
firing continue, least our troops should kill 
each other, he had ordered or would order the 
troops out of action. That he pressed the 
Genl to push the enemy while they were cross- 
ing the river, but the Geni declined it. That 
it was then dark. That the General observed 
to the Deponent, that he was apprehensive 
that the enemy would surround our troops, 
and desired the deponent to ride down to the 
river and inform himself whether the enemy 
were not attempting it. That he replied to 
the Genl, they were crossing the river, but in 
compliance with the General's request he rode 
down. That the place where the enemy crossed 
the river is a common ford and generally made 
use of. That when the Genl told him, he was 
resolved to call the men off, he requested the 
Genl to encamp there on the low ground, the 
field of action. But that the General replied 
he would go to the hills, and Tie with the troops 
retired to a hill about a mile from the field of 
action. 



Henry Glen Esqr being sworn, says: That on 
the 17th Octr about 5 o'clock P. M. General 
Reneslaer arrived at Schenectady at the de- 
ponent's house, and informed him that a num- 
ber of troops were on their march from 
Albany. That the Genl appeared solicitous to 
procure horses to mount his troops on, and ex- 
pedite their march to Fort Hunter, to waylay 
the enemy who were on their way from Scho- 
harie to the Mohawk river. That the depo- 
nent as Acting Quartermaster of the Depart- 
ment advised the Genl that the most eligible 
mode of procuring horses would be by having 
the inhabitants of Schenectady convened, 
which was accordingly done in the evening. 
That the Genl then represented to the inhabi- 
tants [of Schenectady] that he wanted four or 
five hundred horses to mount his men on, to go 
to Fort Hunter, for the purpose above mention- 
ed. That the Genl informed the inhabitants, 
that the deponent had received an express 
from Colo Veeder commanding the Lower 
Fort at Schoharie, informing him that the 
enemy had burnt and destroyed the settle- 
ments at Schoharie, on that day, and were 
halted that night at one Sidney's, [in the pres- 
ent town of Esperance] about fourteen or six- 
teen miles from Fort Hunter. That the dis- 
tance from Schenectady to Fort Hunter is 
twenty miles. That the few inhabitants who 
were collected, promised the general their 
horses, and that they should be sent to the de- 
ponent's house by break of day, next morning. 
That it was also proposed by Genl Rensslaer, 
that in case a sufficiency of horses could not 
be procured, he would take waggons to carry 
the greater number of the men on. 

Quest, by Genl Rensselaer. Were the horses 
or waggons ready as I had required? 

Ans. They were not. 

Quest. Do you recolkct, that as soon as I 
arrived at Schenectady,, I went to the Com- 
missary, and desired him to procure ; or get in 
readiness that evening provisions for the 
troops who were coming on? 

Ans. I do. But the commissary had no pro- 
visions. He sent out and procured two beeves, 
which were killed the next morning, but it 
was late before the troops were served. The 
last drew their rations about eight o'clock. 

Quest. Do you recollect my sending that 
night to Colo Van Alstyne, who was at Nesti- 
gons , to expedite his march so as to be in town 
by daylight next morning? 

[Nestigione is the name of a land patient, in 
Saratoga county, granted to John Rosie and 
others, April 32, 1708. It lay in the rear of a 
row of farms fronting the river, and was a 
mile in depth, in the present county of Sarato- 
ga. The name is sometimes found written 
Connestigone or Niskayuna, the latter now 
limited to a township south of the Mohawk in 
Schnectady county.] 

Ans : I do. 

Quest : After the troops were served with 
provisions, did I, to your knowledge, make 
any unnecessary delay hi marching thus ? 

Ans : You did not. 

Quest : What distance is it, between Nesti- 
giona and Sir William Johnson's old place? 

Ans: The distance between its nearest set- 
tlement called Rosendal and Sir Wm's old 
place is about nineteen miles. 

Quest : Had the troops any time to cook 
their provisions, from the time they drew it 
till their inarch? 

Ans : They had not. 

Court. Quest: Had you any intelligence 



from Gen. Rensslaer on the day of his march, 
after he left Schnectady? 

Ans: Yes. The same evening an express 
came from the Genl with a letter to the gov- 
ernor dated at Chucktinunda, six miles east 
of Fort Hunter, informing the Govr. that he 
had halted to refresh his men, till moon-rise, 
when he intended to march. Afterwards an 
express from the officer commanding at Fort 
Hunter came to me with an accot that Sir 
John Johnson had that afternoon passed Fort 
Hunter and had destroyed Cadorothy on his 
route. 

[The Chuctanunda creek unites with the 
Mohawk opposite the present village of Am- 
sterdam. The road south of the river, in 
former times, instead of following the bend of 
the river, here passed up over the hill, and 
thence in a direct line to Fort Hunter. This 
road was about five miles long, and passed 
nearly two miles from the river.] 

Quest. Are you acquainted with the roads 
and passes of Checktinunda Hill 1 

Ans. I am. The road is bad, and up a long 
clay hill with a pretty close wood on both 
sides. 

Colo. Lewis Dubois, being duly sworn, says, 
that on th 19th October last, at about two 
o'clock P. M., he met General Rensslaer about 
three fourths of a mile below Fort Rensslaer, 
and informed him that Colo. Brown was de- 
feated, and that the enemy were advancing 
up the river. That the general then advised 
with him where would be the most convenient 
spot to meet them : that he told the general 
there was a fording place just by the ground 
where the troops then were, and that in case 
they crossed, there, it would expedite the pur- 
suit after the enemy more than if they crossed 
in the two small boats above, which would 
delay them a long time. That the 
general then gave orders to Lt. Driskill 
to send the artillery to Fort Rensslaer, 
and that the troops should cross immediately. 
That the deponent then asked the general 
whether he had dined. The general replied 
that he had not. (ggPThat as soon as the gen- 
eral had put the troops in motion, he rode to 
the deponent's quarters in Fort Rensslaer to 
take dinner, after leaving orders with the of- 
ficers to cross the river with all possible dis- 
patch. That Lt. Driskill was then ordered to 
leave his men in Fort Rensslaer, to work the 
artillery in case the enemy should attack it, 
and some of the militia who were in the fort, 
were ordered to cross the river, and Mr Lan- 
sing was sent down by the general to expedite 
the crossing of the militia. That the Genl and 
the deponent then went down to Wolrod's 
ferry and found that the militia 
had not yet come up. That he sent 
several expresses to hurry them on. 
That upon their coming to the ferry, they 
found several of the militia who had not yet 
crossed, but immediately passed the ferry, and 
then the Genl. and the deponent crossed as 
quick as possible. That about the time of their 
crossing, they discovered from the firing, that 
the enemy were coming down out of the 
woods towards the river, at or near Fox's 
Mills. That shortly thereafter Genl. Rensse- 
laer's militia joined, and the general advised 
with him on the most eligible mode of attack- 
ing the enemy. Ug^That the plan of attack 
was directed to be in three columns. The 
right composed of Levies commanded by the 
deponent, to be on the high ground; the left 
composed of militia, and commanded by Colo. 
Cuyler, to be on the low ground, and the 



centre to be commanded by Colo. Whit- 
ing. That it was found inconvenient 
to march in columns and they were 
ordered to subdivide into sections, and so 
marched on till they came in sight of the 
enemy. That the deponent rode down to the 
Genl. (then in the centre colunm) and inform- 
ed him J3F° that the enemy [under Sir John 
Johnson] were formed as follows: That their 
\ Rangers were on their right, on the bank of 
j the river, the Regular Troops in the centre on 
' the flats in column, and the Indians and Kifle- 
men on the left, about 150 yards advanced of 
the other troops, in an orchard near Klock's 
house. That upon reconnoitering the ground, 
it was found impracticable to form the centre 
and left columns as was first intended. That 
they were therefore subdivided into smaller 
detachments. Tuat thereupon a skirmishing 
commenced between some scattering Indians 
and white men, advanced of the right of the 
centre column of the enemy. That the deponent 
then retired to his command. That Major 
McKinstry in pursuance of the General's orders 
filed off to the right from the centre and 
marched very near the right column. That 
the remainder of the centre column under the 
command of Colo Whiting, advanced to the 
orchard at Klock's house and engaged them. 
That thefirhig on the part of the enemy xvas 
so ivarm, as to prevent troops under Colo 
Whiting from advancing. That thereupon 
the deponent ordered two companies of his 
[right] column to raise the summit of the hill 
and fire on the enemy [Riflemen and Indians] 
in flank, which broke them and they ran off. 
That deponent then marched on till he gained 
the flank of the enemy's main body, pursuant 
to the General's orders. That it began to grow 
dusk and he discovered that his front had got 
into the enemy's rear. That thereupon, he 
faced life men about, and marched in a line 
down to Che enemy undiscovered : That he gave 
orders for firing platoons from right to 
left, when the enemy broke and ran : That 
he advanced and continued firing upon the 
enemy till he discovered a firing on the rear 
of his left. That finding it came from some 
part of our own militia, he halted his men, 
and rode up to the militia, and met with Gen- 
eral Rensselaer on the left of the centre col- 
umn, where he found the militia had given 
way. That it was so dark that he could not 
discover Genl Rensslaer at the distance of 
five paces, nor know him but from his voice, 
and that when he came up to the Genl he 
found his efforts in vain. That he informed 
the Genl that the right of the centre line were 
firing on the Levies, who were advanced against 
the enemy. That it was then proposed by 
either the Genl or the deponent, that the fir- 
ing should be ordered to cease least 
our men should kill each other. That 
the Genl requested him to ride 
to the rear of the troops and stop ther retreat- 
ing, and inform them that the enemy had re- 
tired over the river. That he went some dis- 
tance, and on his return informed the Genl 
that he coidd not overtake the fronts. That 
the Genl. inquired from him, whether he knew 
of a good piece of ground to encamp on that 
night. That he thereupon recommended a 
hiil near Klock's house, and an order was sent 
to Major Benschoten of the Levies to return 
to the ground near Klock's house. That on 
riding with the Genl he mentioned his appre- 
hensions, that his men would want provisions 
for the march the next day. That the depo- 
nent then recommended to the Genl a spot of 



ground near Fox's where the troops would 
be secure from surprise and provisions might 
be brought to them from the baggage waggons 
which were at Fort Rensslaer. That part of the 
levies were left at Klock's house, to take charge 
of the wounded, and of the stores taken from 
the enemy, and the remainder of the troops 
retired to Fox's. That the Genl immediately 
ordered parties to Fort Rensselaer for pro- 
visions for the militia, and ordered the depo- 
nent to hold himself and the Levies in readi- 
ness to march before daylight the next morn- 
ing in pursuit of the enemy. That in conse- 
quence thereof, he marched with the troops 
about 3 o'clock in the morning. 

Question by the Court. Did the Genl, in 
your opinion, do everything hi his power, to 
annoy and repel the enemy, and save the 
country from desolation? 

Ans. Yes, sir, while I was with him, I was 
nothing wanting in him. 

Quest, by Court. Did the Genl at any time 
discover the least want of personal bravery 
and firmness in the course of the action, and 
transactions of the 19th October last? 
Ans. He did not, but the contrary. 
Quest. t>y Com-i. Did you know that the 
place where the enemy crossed the river was 
a common fording place? 

Ans. I did not, nor was it. The bank at 
the place where they crossed was breast high 
from the water, and the water was deep. 

Quest. Was it very dark on the evening of 
the action? 

Ans. I do not think it was fifteen minutes 
after the firing commenced, before it was so 
dark as to render it impossible to distinguish 
one person from another at a distance of ten 
paces. 

The Court adjourned till to-morrow at 7 
o'clock. 
The court met pursuant to adjournment. 
Mr. Sampson Dyckman being sworn, says. 
That he joined General Rensselaer about five 
miles above Schenectady, at three or four 
o'clock on the afternoon of the day the 
Genl marched from Schenectady. That 
when he came up with the Genl the 
troops were marching with expedition, 
and continued so till evening, being then about 
fourteen or sixteen miles from Schnectady, 
where they halted till moon-rise. That just as 
the moon rose, the Genl came to the encamp- 
ment and ordered the troops to prepare and 
march immediately, and that in five minutes 
they moved. That the Genl informed him the 
enemy were some distance ahead and that he 
expected his troops would soon fall in with 
them. That the road over Chucktinunda Hill 
was very bad, miry and deep, which impeded 
the march. That they arrived at Fort Hunter 
at about 12 o'clock and crossed instantly in a 
scow, on waggons and on horseback, and pro- 
ceeded in their march without de-lay. That 
when the roads were good, the troops inarched 
very fast, but where the roads were bad, they 
were delayed by the artillery and waggons. 
Question by General Rensselaer. Did you not 
come to me with a request that the' troops 
might not be ordered to march so fast? 

Ans. I did wait on you, at the instance of 
Major Schuyler and others, who said the men 
would not be fit for action, in case they were 
marched so fast. You then told me, that the 
enemy were ahead destroying the country, 
and the men must be marched fast at all 
events, to come up with them. Many of the 
men were much fatigued by ten o'clock next 



JV 



morning so as to render it necessary for thern 
to go on horseback and in the waggons. 

The Court adjourned till 5 o'clock P. M. 

The Court met pursuant to adjournment. 

Major Lewis R. Morr s, being sworn, says. 
That he overtook Genl Rensselaer at Mr. H. 
Glen's at Schenectady, on the 18th October 
last, at about 12 o'clock and joined him as a 
volunteer aid-de-camp. That tie was there or- 
dered by the Genl to assist Mr. Le Roy, his Ma- 
jor of Brigade in getting the troops out of town. 
That the troops marched out of town about 
one and a half miles on the low lands where 
they were formed and ordered to march into 
sections to the Woestyne at Mr. Van Eps, 
. about nine miles from Schenectady, where 
they halted to refresh themselves for a very 
short time, and then marched to Sir Williams 
old place, [three miles W of the present vil- 
lage of Amsterdam] That it was then dark, 
and the troops halted till moon-rise about ten 
or eleven o'clock. The deponent was then in- 
formed that the Genl and Field Officers on 
consultation, thought it imprudent and dan- 
gerous to march over the Chicktinunda Hill 
in the night till moon-rise, and the troops were 
accordingly halted on the side of the road. 
That the deponent thereafter attended the ad- 
vanced corp under Lt. Col. Pratt and Major 
McKinster. That about moon-rise, the Genl 
ordered the troops in motion, and marched 
to Fort Hunter, and that the troops 
immediately crossed the river, or Schoharie 
creek in scows, and while the Genl was exam- 
ining two deserters from the enemy. That the 
troops were halted on the west side of Scho- 
harie creek till the artillery came up, which 
had gone a different route and joined them in 
a short time. That the troops then marched 
on without delay to Van Eps, where they ar- 
rived about four o'clock and halted not more 
than an hour. That during that halt letters 
were written by order of the Genl to Colo 
Dubois and Colo Brown, informing them of 
his approach with a body of troops, and that 
these letters were given in a charge to a Mr. 
Wallace. That soott after the letters were dis- 
patched, the troops were put in motion; that 
the day then began to dawn. That the roads 
were very bad and the troops com- 
plained of being very much fa- 
tigued. That the whole body marched 
about four or five miles and halted at the ruins 
of a house, for a few minutes for the purpose 
of examining a prisoner taken that night. 
That the deponent then again joined the ad- 
vance corps and proceeded on to a bridge, 
where he and Lt. Col. Pratt discovered a party 
of the enemy on the opposite side of the river. 
That the advance corps halted till the de- 
ponent rode down about a quarter of a mile to 
the Genl, (who was advancing with the troops), 
to inform him of the discovery of the enemy. 
That as that party of the euemy was out of the 
reach of musket shot, the Genl ordered up a 
piece of artillery, whereupon the enemy dis- 
persed. That the whole of the troops moved 
on to the south side of the river opposite Ma- 
jor Fry's [now opposite Canajoharie village] 
where (as the deponent had understood) the 
Genl intended to cross the troops, but that on 
his arrival there, he found it impossible. That 
it was then between eight and ten o'clock. 
That a firing was then heard, wdiich, from its 
direction, was supposed to be at Oswegatchie, 
[a settlement a short distance north east from 
Stone Arabia, in Palatine] and which after- 
wards proved to have been Colo Brown's ren- 
counter with the enemy. That the advanced 



corps not being incumbered with any wag- 
gons or artillery moved on expeditiously. 
That with the main body were one ammuni 
tion waggon and two pieces of|artillery, (2) and 
that to the best of his knowledge, the'baggage 
waggons were in the rear of the whole. That 
the main body moved on to a house about a 
mile below Fort Rensselaer. That it was then 
between 10 and 1 o'clock. That the troops 
halted there, and the Genl then reed informa- 
tion of Colo Browris defeat. That Colo Dubois 
and Colo Harper there waited on the Genl. 
That the troops were ordered to refresh them 
selves; ami the Genl gave orders for their cros- 
sing the ford as soon as they had refreshed 
themselves. That after delivering the orders 
for that purpose, the Genl went with C«>lo Du- 
bois to Fort Rensselaer. That the deponent 
reed orders from the Genl to go and assist Mr. 
Le Roy in getting the troops over the ford. 
That he accordingly exerted himself in assist- 
ing Mr. Le Roy to get the troops over the river. 
That tgp^/ie troops refused to ford the river, 
and waggons were drove into it, to facilitate 
their passage. That it was about an hour after 
the troops came to the ford, before they began 
to cross, and that it was between 
two and three hours from their 
first arrival before they were all over.^JS] 
U3P That they crossed this ford in different 
ways. In some instances the waggons were 
drove into the river ; behind each other, and 
the troops passed from one to the other by 
wading on the tongues. „jgj ThatCaptn Dris- 
kill came down to the ford, with orders from 
the Genl to hasten the crossing of the troops, 
and that Mr Lansing also came and exerted 
himself in getting them over the river. That 
after they had all crossed, they were marched 
with dispatch to the Ferry where they joined 
the Levies and Indians. That the Genl did 
there take the command of the whole. That 
after he had joined, the whole were divided 
into three columns; the right com- 
posed of Levies, (3) and the left and cen- 
tre of Militia. That the Oneida Indians 
marched between the left and centre, but 
sometimes changed then situation. That the 
troops marched in this order in pursuit (?) of 
the enemy for some miles That the centre 
and left columns were then subdivided, am 1 
continued their march. That Colo Harper 
came to the Genl and advised him that an 
Oneida Indian had discovered the enemy near 
at hand on the low grounds. Tnat soon there- 
after, the deponent discovered them drawn 
up in order (4). That the Genl then ordered Mr. 
Lansing to the right, and deponent to the left. 
That the firing on the enemy from the advance 
party of the centre then commenced about 
(200) two hundred yards distance. That about 
the same time, Colo Cuyler's Regiment of the 
left column began to fire on the enemy 
at about four hundred yards distance. 
That the Genl desired the deponent to go to 
the left and Jgp'order them to cease firing, 
and advance toward the enemy (5). That he 
thereupon went to the left and communicated 
the Genl's orders, but that it was a consider- 
able time before he could effect it. That that 
regiment advanced a little, and inclined to- 
wards the river when the deponent left it. 
That Colo Rensselaer's Regt was advanced 
towards the enemy in an orchard in flront of 
Klock's House. That after delivering the 
orders to Colo Cuyler's Regt, (6) he returned to 
the Genl, whom he found in the centre, with 
Colo Rensselaer's & Whiting's regts which 
were then in the greatest disorder and confu- 



sion. and that the Genl did exert himself to 
get them in order again. 

Question by the Court. At what time did 
the firing commence? 

Ans. At about sunset, and continued about 
thirty minutes. 

Quest, by Court. Did the general discover 
any want of personal bravery and firmness in 
the action of the day? 

Ans. He did not. 

Quest, by Court. Was Colo Cuyler's Regt 
also in disorder and confusion? 

Ans. They were. 

Quest, by Court. What was the extreme dis- 
tance between the front and rear of that reg't? 

Ans. About two hundred and fifty or three 
hundred yards. 

Quest, by Genl Rensselaer. Did not the rear 
of the left fire at the same time when the front 
did? 

Ans. They did. 

Quest, by Genl Rensselaer. [gpDid you hear 
the reason assigned for ordering a retreat \ 

Ans. I did. I think the reason was, that 
the troops were in such confusion that 
it would be easy for a small party of the ene- 
my to cut them to pieces. 

Quest, by Court. Did the Genl thro' the 
whole of his march from Schenectady up- 
wards, discover a solicitude to come up with 
the enemy? 

Ans. He even aopeared anxious to come up 
with them? 

Quest, by the Court. What was Genl Rensse- 
lear's conduct the da}' after the action? 

-4ns. Colo. Dubois with the levies marched 
in pursuit of die enemy the next morning, and 
the Genl then ordered some light troops from 
the regiments of militia who were best able to 
march, to go as volunteers to overtake Col. 
Dubois. Tha'u the "dept went accordingly 
with about thirty volunteers. That on his way, 
the General with a party of horse (7) passed 
him at the Castle [in the present town of Dan- 
ube, opposite the mouth of East Canada 
Creek] and that the deponent with his party 
marched on and scarse came up with the Geail 
and Colo Dubois at Fort Herkimer. 
That as soon as the main body 
of militia came up, the whole force 
marched in pursuit of the enemy about three 
or four miles above Fort Herkimer at Shoe- 
makers', where they halted for some time. 
That a difference of opinion then arose on the 
route the enemy had taken, and U^iT" on a con- 
sultation of the field officers, the whole of the 
troops returned to Fort Herkimer, where the 
Govr took the command. „jSll 

Quest, by Genl. Rensselaer. Do you not 
recollect that I sent out three or four Indians 
to discover the enemy's track? 

Ans. I do. 

Edward S. Willet, being sworn, says: That 
on the day of the action of the 19th October 
last, he was attached to the artillery. That 
he was at Fort Rensselaer, and afterwards 
with Getil Rensselaer and Colo Dubois, on the 
bank of the river at the ferry- That he there 
received orders from the Genl to go down to 
the place where the militia were crossing, and 
desire the officers to hurry on the troops as 
quick as possible, which he did. 

Quest, hi; Gal Rensselaer. Do you not re- 
member that the artillery and ammunit ; on 
waggons frequently halted on account of the 
badness of the roads '. 

Ans. I do, and particularly at and above 
Anthony's Nose, where the ammunition wag- 



gon was delayed, the horses being much fa- 
tigued. 

Lieut. Garret W. Van Schaick, being sworn 
says : That he was in the field of action on 
the 19th Oct. last. That when Colo Cuyler's 
Regiment, and the other troops were advan- 
cing towards the enemy [ggpthen yet out of 
the reach of musket shot, Colo Cuyler's Regt 
began to fire upon the enemy, and rushed on a 
few paces, which broke the line or order they 
were in. That soon after, they were m great 
disorder and confusion and the deponent saw 
Genl Rensselaer with them, endeavoring to 
form them. That the Genl exerted himself 
greatly on this occasion, but his efforts were 
fruitless, ^gl That the troops were worn 
down with fatigue occasioned by the long and 
rapid march and the want of rest the preced- 
ing night. 

The court adjourned till Tuesday morning. 

7 o'clock. March 15th, 1780.— The Court met, 
pursuant to adjournment and adjourned till 
the ltith at 6 o'clock P. M. 

March 16th the Court met. 

Colo Samuel Clyde [Canajoharie District 
Regiment (8) apptd 25 Jan 1778] being sworn, 
says, That on the day of the action of the 19th 
October last, he commanded a party of Tryon 
county militia. That he was at Wolrod's 
Ferry near Fort Rensselaer at the time when 
Genl Rensselear with the militia arrived at 
Adam Countryman's, about a mile below it. 
That he crossed the ferry to the north, side 
with the levies and militia, about one o'clock 
P. M. by Colo Dubois' orders. That he had 
orders to halt there till Genl Rensselaer should 
join him. That about three or four hours 
thereafter, the Genl with his Militia joined 
the Levies and militia at the ferry, when 
without the least delay, the whole force 
marched with the greatest expedition till they 
came up with the enemy. That the militia 
commanded by the deponent were attached 
by the Levies under Colo. Dubois on the right. 
That the deponent was not informed of the 
disposition of tne other troops, and had no op- 
portunity to observe it, as he marched imme- 
diately into the woods on the hill. That the 
troops marched about four miles, till 
they had got above Colo KlocWs. That 
he then heard a firing near Kloek's 
House; but that the right continued their 
march with design to out flank the enemy. 
That upon finding that the right had got above 
the enemy, two or three platoons of Levies and 
Militia were detached (by Maj. Benschoten) 
from the rear to attack a body of the enemy 
[Indians] who were posted about one hundred 
rods above Klock's. That that detachment fired 
six or seven platoons when the enemy fled, 
and the troops returned to their post. That 
the right was then ordered to halt, until Colo 
Dubois waited on the Genl for orders. That 
At was then so dark as to render it difficult to 
enter into action with safety; as it was hardly 
possible to distinguish our troops and the 
enemy from one another. That he then ob- 
served a cross fire upon the right, from the 
low lands, which he supposed to have come 
from the enemy, but that he was the 
same evening imformed by Colo. Dubois 
that it proceeded from our o'-n troops. That 
the right remained in that situation for about 
half an hour. That the enemy could just be 
discerned and part of them were then heard 
crossing the river. That the'daylight was then 
in, and the troops received orders to march, 
and they proceeded towards Klock's House, 
where they halted a short space of time. That 



on hearing the groanings of a man that lay 
wounded in the field of action, he detached 
six men to bring him in. That these men 
with some others, brought in the artillery 
waggons and artillery [What artillery? Sir 
John had no artillery, properly speaking] (9) 
which had been deserted by the enemy. That 
a report of this matter was sent to Genl 
Rensselaer, two or three hours after 
dark. That it was agreed between 
this deponent and Maj. Benschoten 
to halt the troops and remain on the 
ground, where they were, and that soon after, 
Colo Dubois came to them with orders that 
they should remain on the ground near 
Klock's. That he did not hear of any council 
of war being held, and a retreat resolved on. 
That Colo Dubois informed the deponent 
and Major Benschoten, that the Genl would 
be with them in the morning, and that they 
were to march m pursuit of the enemy. That 
the Levies under Colo Dubois, and the militia 
commanded by the deponent, marched accord- 
ingly about an hour after sunrise, and before 
the Genl came up with them. That he heard the 
Genl lodged at Fox's about three or four miles 
below Klock's [i. e. down the river]. That 
Colo Dubois and the deponent, and their troops 
marched to Fort Herkimer and arrived there 
about two o'clock, being about eighteen or 
twenty miles. That about an hour after, they 
were joined by the general with a party of 
horse, and that some time thereafter, Major 
Morris, with a party of militia came up ; and 
that about two hours after the General's arri- 
val they were joined by a body of militia. 
That then (about four o'tlock), all the troops 
marched from Fort Herkimer (about six miles), 
to Shoemaker's. 

Gent's Question. Do you know the reason 
of our marching to Shoemaker's? 

Ans. The enemy had marched into the 
woods, and it was supposed they only meant to 
avoid the little forts which were along the pub- 
lic road, and would come into the road again 
at Shoemaker's. 

GenVs Quest. Did you not hear that we 
were at a loss to know which way the enemy 
had gone, and do you not recollect that three 
Indians were sent out by me to discover their 
track \ 

A. I did hear that it was doubtful which 
route the enemy had taken and that the Indi- 
ans were sent out. 

'hirst. Did we remain there that night, or 
did we return, — and when — and do you know 
the reason, of our re/urn.' 

Ans. We remained there till near dark, 
and then returned to Fort Herkimer. I do 
not know the reason why. I heard the scouts 
had been out and returned, and that they 
could not discover that the enemy had gone 
that way. 

Quest. Did not the governor [Clinton] join* 
usat.Furt Herkimer? 

Ans. He did, some time in that night. 

Quest. Had you on the 10th October from 
your situation, any opportunity of seeing the 
confusion thai prevailed on our left and.cen- 
tref 

Ans. I had not. 

Quest. Do you think it would have been pru- 
dent in me, to have engaged the enemy with 
the party of Levies and Militia who were on 
the north side of the river, at Wolrod's Ferry, 
before the militia who were below came up? 
■ . I do not think it would. 

[Gen. Rensselaer had over 1500 fresh men with 
artillery, cocks in their own barn yard, to fight 



less than half the number of beaten-out Whites 
and Indians. In the name of soldiership 
how many did he want ? and what more odds 
in his favor? Did he think Sir John a fool tc 
wait for the concentration of the 45 regts oi 
Tryon and the neighboring counties to over- 
whelm him? Sir John had done his work. 
Why did not his antagonist do his v] 

Quest, by the Court. Did you on the l()tt 
or 20th October, or at any time before, dis- 
cover any want of personal bravery or firm- 
ness in Genl Rensselaer ? 

Ans. I never did, before, nor did I at any 
time on those days. 

John Lansing, Junr, Esqr. (10) being sworn, 
says as follows: On the 17th Octobei 
last, in the afternoon, I accompanied 
Genl Rensselaer in quality of Aid-ma 
jor from Albany to Schenectady. The city 
of Albany militia, and some other regiment* 
(11) having previously proceeded on theii 
march to that place. We overtook and passed 
a number of the militia before we arrived a1 
that place, and Colo Van Alstyne's regt (12 
which had been directed to march by the 
way of Nestagiuna, not having ar- 
rived at Schenectady in the evening 
the general sent an express to him, with orders 
to hasten his march, so as to be at Schenec- 
tady at daybreak next morning. In the 
mean time, the general having been informed 
that the enemy were still burning in the losvei 
parts of Scoharie, convened some of the princi- 
pal inhabitants of Schenectady, and advised 
with them on the practicability of procuring a 
number of horses and waggons by the next 
morning, to convey such militia as could be 
collected, towards the enemy, with the great- 
est expedition. The attempt was made in the 
course of the night, but a number very inade- 
quate to the service could only be procured. 
The issuing commissary was the same 
evening sent for to inform the general 
of the state of provisions at Schenec- 
tady. It appeared from his information, 
as I was advised by Genl Rensselaer an hour 
or two after he was sent for, that there was 
not a sufficiency of provisions of the meat 
kind to victual the troops for a day, and a very 
small quantity of bread. Some cattle arriv- 
ing destined for the garrison of Fort 
Schuyler, the general ordered some of them 
to be killed for the use of the militia. Those 
were to have been ready at daybreak, but the 
bread which was ordered to be baked, and the 
cattle directed to be killed, did not get ready 
until about nine o'clock in the morning, before 
which orders were issued to march as soon as 
the provisions should be received. While we 
were at Schenectady on the morning of the 
18th, Genl Rensselaer wrote a letter, or di- 
rected me to write to Colo Staats or Veeder 
(I oan not charge my memory to which) di- 
recting him, as nearly as I can recollect, to call 
upon Major Woolsey, and to take all the forc< 
he could collect from the different posts at 
Schohary, without exposing the forts toe 
much, pursue the enemy, and hang on their 
rear, avoiding however an engagement, and 
advisinsr the Genl from time to time, of tin 
route, numbers, and such other particular, 
respecting the enemy as he coulei collect. I 
believe it was between nine and ten o'clock 
before the militia got in march. They 
marched on the 18th, as far as Sir William 
Johnson's old place, on the Mohawk River, 
which I think I was informed was sixteen 
miles above Schenectady. We arrived there 
after it was dark, and took post on a hill. A 



XXIX 



council was called by the General as soon as 
the troops could be properly disposed of, con- 
sisting of a number of field officers and the 
General suggested to them the necessity of 
taking measures to procure intelligence of the 
enemy's route. It was agreed to send out a 
party to make discoveries, and which was ac- 
cordingly done. The Tughtenunda [Chucta- 
nunda] Hill being covered with woods, and it 
being very dark, the council agreed in senti- 
ment, that it would be most advisable to re- 
main on the ground on which we then were, 
tiflthe moon should begin to appear. We ac- 
cordingly remained I think till some time be- 
fore the moon rose, when the march was re- 
sumed. We arrived at Fort Hunter (I think) 
about twelve. The militia were directed to 
cross the Scholarie creek, which was soon 
effected in a scow and the waggons. I went 
into the fort with the General, who examined 
a prisoner that had been taken and brought in, 
and upon coming out we crossed the 
creek and found most of the militia on 
the west side. We then marched on, and I 
do not recollect that we made any halt after 
leaving the creek, till we got to Van Ep's 
where we halted, I think about an hour. Here 
the General directed me to write Colonels 
Dubois and Brown, advising them of his situ- 
ation, and his intentions to pursue the enemy 
closely, and to attack them by break of day. 
In consequence of these orders, I wrote a let- 
ter to Colo Dubois, of which I believe the pa- 
per Colo Harper produced to the court is a 
copy. Another was dispatched to Colo Brown. 
The Genl received the accounts at Van Eps, 
by one Wallace, that the enemy were en- 
camped at Anthony's Nose, on both sides of 
the river, we continued our march to a 
field at some distance from the east 
side of the Nose. It was then 
some time advanced m the day. Here we 
halted. The ammunition was inspected, and 
an additional quantity distributed among the 
troops. Colonel Louis (13) wa^ sent out to recon- 
noitre Anthony's Nose, which is a very dan- 
gerous defile. Upon his return, and reporting 
that he had made no discoveries, and after the 
issues of ammunitions were completed, which 
might possibly have taken an hour, the militia 
were ordered on. After proceeding to the 
west side of the Nose, we discovered a party 
of about forty of the enemy on the north 
side of the Mohawk River who were bending 
their course towards the river. Our advance 
was then about one quarter of a mile in front 
of the main body. Captn Driskill of the 
artillery was with a field piece (14) with 
the advance guard. I was directed 
by the Genl to go on the advance 
guard and order the officer commanding it, 
to make proper dispositions to intercept the 
enemy, should they cross a ford, which it 
was said was in our front, as the general sup- 
posed they mistook our troops for those of 
the enemy I rode to the advance, and de- 
livered mv orders. They halted for some 
time, and Capt Driskill upon my returning 
desired me to beg the general to give the ene- 
my's party a shot or two [very Unwise if he 
wished to overtake and surprise a retreating 
foe]. When I returned, I communicated Dris- 
kill's request. Genl Rensselaer observed to 
me, our business was not so much to frighten 
the enemy as to fight them, and that a ' com- 
pliance with Driskill's request would only tend 
to discover to the enemy that we were in 
force. We continued marching on, without 
making any general halt, that I recollect, till 



we arrived at the ford, about a mile to 
the eastward of Fort Rensselaer. 
The militia stopped here to refresh 
themselves not having had time to ccok their 
provisions since their leaving Schenectady, 
the enemy being then burning from the di- 
rection of their fires at Stone Arabia. 

Soon after the halt, Genl Rensselaer went to 
Fort Rensselaer, to which place I followed 
him and dined. Immediately after dinner, 
Genl Rensselaer directed me to go down to the 
militia and order them across the river as soon 
as possible. When I came down to the place 
where they had halted, I found that some had 
already crossed the river on waggons and 
others were following their example. But 
they went across very tardily, complaining of 
being too much harrassed by a forced march, 
and many appeared much dispirited on ac- 
eount of Brown's defeat which teas generally 
known among them. 

Imagining that the crossing would be expe- 
dited by forming a bridge across the river 
with our waggons, I suggested it to some of 
the field officers who agreed with me in senti- 
ment*, but the orders given for the execution 
of this service, were executed with such reluc- 
tance, that at least two hours elapsed before 
the militia had crossed, tho' many of the 
officers exerted themselves to facilitate their 
conveyance across the river. While the militia 
were crossing, I received two messages from 
the General, to push them on with all expe- 
dition, which was communicated to tin field 
officers on the ground. In the mean time, 
an attempt teas made to induce them to font 
the river, but proved unavailing. As soon as 
they were crossed, they were marched to the 
place where the levies had crossed the river, 
acid were formed and counted off in sections. 
The enemy Was then about two miles in ad- 
vance, burning flic buildings as they proceed- 
ed. After we liad marched on some distance, 
the general directed me to write a letter to 
his Excellency the Governor, advising him 
that he was near the enemy, and intended to 
attack as soon as he could overtake them. 
While I was writing, the disposition of the 
troops were made for an attack. Upon my 
overtaking the General, who was at the head 
of what I was told was the centre column, I 
rode with him some minutes, when he observed 
to me, that the militia on the left, were 
man-lung on without observing any order, 
and directed me to go to them, and order 
them to march more compactly. I went 
down and gave the orders to Colo Cuyler and 
some other officers. Upon my return to 
the General, I observed a number of man 
in advance of the centre, as I afterwards 
found, and upon my taking the shortest route 
towards them, 1 found they were Indians. I 
enquired of one of them whether he had seen 
riic ( leneral. He happened not to understand 
me, and while I was endeavoring to make him 
understand me the, Indians began to fire, and 
received a warm one in return. The first 
fire my horse fell with me. By this time, 
the troops in the low ground had commenced 
a firing at long shot from the enemy, broke, 
and some ran. I again made an attempt to 
mount my horse, but finding that he would 
not stand fire, I ran down towards the 
left, one of the militia attending me, and 
leading my horse, till I came to Van Als- 
tyne's regiment which was broke. I as- 
sisted in rallying it, which was partly ef- 
fected. I then went to Colonel Cuyler's and 
endeavored to assist the officers in rally- 



ing that regiment, which was also partly 
rallied: |5F But part of another regiment 
(Van Alstyne's 1 think) tiring at Cuyler's 
they again broke, and could not be rallied, ^Jgfl 
A similar confusion seemed to prevail in 
every part of the troops on the left. ^JgJ I 
did not see Genl Rensselaer after the tiring 
commenced, till it had somewhat subsided, and 
from the direction of the fire, it appeared that 
the enemy's had entirely ceased, when he ex- 
erted to rally Cuyler's and other regiments on 
the left. 

[ggT He observed to me, that the confusion 
and darkness was such, that it would be impru- 
dent to engage the enemy in the night, and 
directed me to assist in marching off' the 
troops. - J 

2 g When the firing commenced on our 
part, the rear of two regiments in the low 
grounds, were strung along a hundred and 
fifty or two hundred yards behind the front, 
and kept up a warm fire, as well as the front, 
but the direction of the fire seemed to be up 
in the air. At the time the engagement be- 
gan it was dark, and in a few minutes it was 
quite dark, which I beKeved was occasioned 
by the smoke from the buildings which were 
burnt In/ the enemy. Immediately after the 
firing on the part of the enemy ceased, I heard 
several exclamations at different times, by the 
militia on the low grounds, that they were in 
danger to be cut to pieces and surrounded by 
the enemy and many of them expressed a great 
disposition to run off. | J 

In the evening of the action, I suggested to 
the general, that the troops were without 
provisions and I recollect he informed nit, 
that he had ordered the provisions to be over 
early in the morning, but it did not arrive till 
after sunrise. In the same evening, the Gen- 
eral informed me, that he had given orders to 
Colo Dubois, for the marching of the Levies 
in pursuit of the enemy the next morning, by 
break of day, or before day, (I do not recollect 
which), and those troops marched accord- 
ingly. As soon as the militia had got their 
provisions and cooked and eat it, they march- 
ed also, I think about an hour after sunrise 
(but this I cannot ascertain with precision.) 
On the march, the general desired that a small 
detachment of men of the different regiments 
who were best able to go on, should turn out 
as volunteers, to overtake, and who went on to 
join Colo. Dubois. 

If I recollect right, this detachment was 
made in consequence of intelligence received, 
that Colo. Dubois was very near the enemy. 

The General went on, escorted by a small 
number of horsemen, to join Colo. Dubois. 1 
f( dlowed tim, and we arrived at Fort Herkimer 
about two o'clock. About two hours after, the 
militia joined us and halted a small space of 
time. Here the General received intelligence, 
that the enemy had struck off from the public 
road to avoid the fort, and had taken the 
route to Shoemaker's. The General then 
marched the troops on to near Shoemaker's. 
It was there become doubtful what route the 
enemy had taken, and parties of Indians and 
white men were sent out to discover their 
track who returned and finally reported that 
from the observations they could make, the 
enemy had not gone that way. When the 
General found that he had mistaken the 
enemy's route, he ordered the troops to re 
turn to fort Herkimer, with intentions (as was 
said), to fall in with their track, to the south- 
ward of Port Herkimer. It was just dark, 

when the troops marched from Shoemaker's 



towards Fort Herkimer. The next morning 

the Governor took the command. 

Quest ion by the Court. From the whole 
tenor of Genl Rensselaer's conduct in his 
march up the Mohawk River, had you reason 
to suppose that he was anxious to come up 
with the enemy? 

A nsr. He appeared to be very much so, in 
every part of his conduct. 

Quest, by Court. Did you, in or before the 
action of the 19th October, discover any want 
of firmness, or personal bravery in the gen- 
eral? 

Ansr. From what I observed of his con- 
duct, before the action, he appeared to possess 
himself fully, and in the course of that action. 
or after it he did not betray the least want 
of resolution or firmness, as far as fell under 
my observation. 

The Court then adjourned till Saturday 
morning, March 17th, at 7 o'clock. 

The court met pursuant to adjournment.* 

Upon duly considering the proofs and alle- 
gations respecting B. Genl. Rensselaer's con- 
duct on the hicursions of the enemy into 
Tryon County, in October last: The court do 
unanimously. report their opinion: 

That the whole of General Rensselaer's eon- 
duct both before and after, as well as m, the 
action of the 19th of October last, was not 
only unexceptionable, but such as became a 
good, active, faithful, prudent and spirited 
officer, and J g that flic public clamors 
raised to his prejudice on that account, arc 
without the least foundation. ^M£& 

Jacobus Swartwout, Presdt. 

His Excellency, Governor Clinton. 



ENGAGEMENT NEAK FOX'S MILLS, 

Bast Side of Caroga Creek, Where it Empties Into 

the Mohawk River, Near St. Johnsville, 

Montgomery*Co., s. N. r.,63 Miles 

\\. by N. of Albany. 

OFTEN STYLED THE BATTLE OF KLOCK'S 
FIELD. 

Sometimes Confounded With That of Stone- 
Arabia Ion or near de Peyster Patent I. 

10th OCTOBER, 1780. 



Of all the engagements which have occurred 
upon the soil of New York, the "cock-pit." or 
"the Flanders,"' of the Colonies, there is none 
which has been so much misrepresented as 
this. There is scarcely a word of truth in the 
narrative generally accepted as history. Envy, 
hatred, and malice, have painted every pic- 
ture and even gone so far as to malign the 
State commander, the scion of a family who 
risked more than any other for the Common- 
wealth to conceal and excuse the bad conduct 
of his troops. As for the leader of the Loyal- 
ists it is no wonder that his reputation fared so 
badly at the hands of a community whom he 
had made to suffer so severely for their sins 
against justice, his family, connections, friends 
andhimself. The State Brigadier-General has 
been accused in so many wdrds of inefficiency. 
cowardice and disloyalty (French G., 432: 
Stone B., II, 124-5; B. W., ii., 126-7; Simm's 
S. C, 430-1; Campbell's B. W., 199-201), al- 
though acquitted by his peers of all three and 



highly commended tor activity, fidelity, pru- 
dence, spirit and conduct. The Royal leader 
was also subjected to a false accusation of 
want .of courage, on the statement of a per- 
sonal enemy, and like his antagonist received 
the highest commendation of his superior, a 
veteran and proficient. 

Before attempting to describe what actually 
occurred on the date of the collision, a brief 
introduction is necessary to its comprehen- 
sion. The distinguished Peter van Schaack 
(Stone, SirW. J., II., 38&) pronounced Sir 
William Johnson ''the greatest character 
of the age," the ablest man who figured 
in our immediate Colonial history. He 
was certainty the benefactor of Central New- 
York, the protector of its menaced frontier, 
the first who by a victory stayed the flood- 
tide of French invasion. His son, Sir John, 
succeeded to the bulk of his vast possessions in 
the most troublous times of New York history. 
He owed everything to the Crown and notn- 
ing to the People, and yet the People because 
he would not betray the trusts which he held 
from the Crown, drove him forth and de- 
spoiled him. More than once lie returned in 
arms to punish and retrieve, at a greater haz- 
ard than any to which the mere professional 
soldier is subjected. By the detestable laws of 
this embryo State, even a peaceable return 
subjected him to the risk of a halter; conse- 
quently in addition to the ordinary perils of 
battle, he fought as it were with a rope around 
his neck. There was no honorable captivity 
for him. The same pitiless retribution, which, 
after Kings's Mountain (S. C.) in the 
same month and year (7th October, 1780) 
strung up ten or a dozen Loyalist 
otlicers, would have sent him speedily to the 
scaffold. The coldly cruel or unrelentingly 
severe — choose between the terms — Governor 
Clinton would have shown no pity to one who 
had struck harder and of tener than anj r other, 
and left the record of his visitations in letters 
of tire on vast tablets of ashes coherent with 
blood. 

In 1777, through the battle-plans of Sir 
John, a majority of the effective manhood of 
the Mohawk — among these some of his par- 
ticular persecutors — perished at Oriskany. In 
1 779, his was the spirit which induced the In- 
dians to make an effort to arrest Sullivan, and 
it was Sir John, at length interposed between 
this General and his great objective Niagara 
(Stone's Brant. II., 3(i; B. W., II., 38), if it 
was not the very knowledge that Sir 
John was concentrating forces in his 
front caused Sullivan to turn back. In 
the following Autumn (1779) he made himself 
master of the key of the ' 'great portage" be- 
tween Oaitario and the Mohawk, and his 
farther visitation of the valley eastward, was 
only frustrated by the stormy season on the 
great lake by which alone he could receive re- 
inforcements and supplies. 

In May. 1780. starting from Bulwagga. Bay 
(near Crown Point) on Lake Champlain, hie 
constructed a military road through the 
wilderness (see page viii. supra) of which 
vestiges are still plainly visible — ascended the 
Sacondaga. crossed the intervening water- 
shed, and fell (on Sunday night,21st May) with 
the suddenness of a waterspout upon his re- 
bellious birthplace, accomplished his purpose, 
left behind him a dismal testimony of his visi- 
tation, and despite the pursuit of aggregated 
hate and vengeance, escaped with his re- 
covered plate, rich booty ami numerous pris- 
oners. 



In August-September of the same year, he 
organized a second expedition at Lachine, ('•* 
miles above Montreal.) ascended the St. Law- 
rence, crossed Lake Ontario, followed up the 
course of the Oswego river, coasted the south- 
ern shore of Oneida Lake until he reached the 
mouth of Chittenango Creek. (\V. boundary bet. 
Madison co. and E. of Onondaga cq.,) where 
he left his bateaux and canoes, struck off 
southeastward up the Chittenango. then 
crossing the Unadilla and the Charlotte, 
(sometimes called the East branch of the Sus- 
quehanna,) and descended in a tempest of 
flame into the rich settlements along the 
Schoharie, which he struck at what was 
known as the Upper Fort, now Fultonhani, 
Schoharie co. 

[If the old maps of this then savage country 
are reliable, he may have crossed fi*om the 
valley of the Charlotte into that of the Mo- 
hawk Branch of the Delaware, or the Papon- 
tuck Branch farther east again. From either 
there was a portage of only a few miles to the 
Schoharie Kill.] 

Thence he wasted the whole of this rich 
valley to the mouth of this stream, and then 
turning westward completed the devastation 
of everything which preceding inroads had 
spared, (Brant II., 134.) The preliminary 
circuitous march through natural obsta- 
cles apparently insunnountable to an armed 
force was one of certainly 200 miles. The suc- 
ceeding sweep 

"With steel to the bosom, and name to the roof," 
and retreat embraced almost as many. More 
than one contemporary statement attests that 
the invasion carried tilings back to the uncer- 
tainties of the old French inroads and rein- 
vested Schenectady with the dangerous honor 
of being considered again a frontier post. 
(Hough's Northn. Invn. 131, 144) 

The terrifying intelligence of the appear- 
ance of this little "army of vengeance" aroused 
the whole energy of coterminous districts: the 
militia were assembled in haste, and pushed 
f orward to the point of danger under Brigadier 
Genera] Robert van Rensselaer of Claverack, 
(now Columbia Co:) who were guided into the 
presence of their enemy literally "by pillars of 
fire by night, and columns of smoke by day." 
Although he knew that he waslpursued by forces 
treble or quadruple if not quintuple his own. 
Sir John continued to burn and destroy up to 
the very hour when his troops were obliged to 
lay aside the torch to resume their firelocks. 
In fact if the two engagements of the 19th of 
October, 1780, were contemplated parts of a 
combined plan to overwhelm Sir John, he ac- 
tually fought and burned simultaneously. To 
whomsoever a contemporaneous map of this 
country is accessible it will be evident how 
vast a district was subjected to this war cy- 
clone. On the very day (19th Oct.) that van 
Rensselaer was at Fort Plain the flourishing 
settlements of Stone Arabia (Palafrine Town- 
ship, Montgomery Co:) a few miles to the west- 
ward, were destroyed. Finding that he must 
ftght either to arrest pursuit or to ensure re- 
treat. Sir John hastily assembled some of his 
wearied troops, while others kept on burning 
in every direction, to engage the garrison of 
Fort Paris— constructed to protect the Stone 
Arabia settlement (Simm's S. Co., 426) — which 
marched out to intercept him under Colonel 
Brown, an officer of undoubted ability and of 
tried courage. Brown's immediate force consist- 
ed of 130 men of the Massachusetts Levies, and 
a body of militia — 70 and upwards— whose mini- 



XXXII 



bers and co-operation seemed to have been 
studiously concealed by almost every writer 
at the period ; that there were Militia present is 
unquestionable. It is almost, if not absolutely 
certain that Brown marched out of Fort Paris 
in pursuance of the orders and plan of van-- 
Rensselaer, in order to cut Sir John off from 
his line of retreat, and hold him or "head him" 
until van Rensselaer could fall upon him with 
i iverwhelming numbers. The same failure 
to co-operate in executing a very sensible 
piece of strategy sacrificed Herkimer to Sir 
John at Oriskany, some three years previous- 
ly, and resulted in a similar catastrophe. To 
appreciate and to forestall was the immediate 
and only solution. Sir John attacked Colonel 
Brown — like "now, on the head" as Suwarrow 
phrased it— about 9 or 10 A. M., killed 
him and about 100 of his men, captured several 
(Hough's N. I. says40 kd. and 2 pris:)and sent 
the survivors flying into van Rensselaer's 
lines to infect them with the terror of the 
slaughter from which they had just escaped. 
The Stone Arabia Fight in which Col. Brown 
fell was only two miles distant from the 
■'Nose." where van Rensselaer's forces had 
already arrived. They heard the firing just as 
twilight was melting into night in a valley 
where the latter permaturely reigned through 
the masses of smoke from burning buildings 
which brooded like a black fog, sensible to the 
touch. Van Rennselaer came upon the po- 
sition where Sir John had "settled" 
himself to resist. This term "settled" 
is most apposite. It recalls a spectacle often 
visible in our woods when a predatory hawk 
wearied in its flight settles on a limb to rest 
and resist a flock of encompassing furious 
■ rows whose nests he has just invaded. 

To refer back to the da rkness occasioned by 
smoke, it may be necessary to state that the 
dwellers of cities or old cultivated districts 
have no conception of the atmospheric dis- 
turbance occasioned by extensive conflagra- 
I ions in a wooded country. 

[The dark day in Massachusetts of 10 May, 
I ;'so, was due to this cause (Heath 230, '7, '8), 
w hen artificial night, culminating about 
noon, sent the animal creation to roost and re- 
pose with less exceptions than during the com- 
pletest eclipse, and filled the minds of men with 
apprehension and astonishment. This is not 
bh ■ onlv "dark dav" so recorded. On the 
35th October, 1823 at New York candlelight 
was necessary at 11 A. M. The 16th May, 1780, 
was another "dark day" in Canada, where 
similar phenomena were observed 0th, 15th, 
and 16th Octr 1785. On the last, "it is said 
Co have been as dark as a dark night." Sev- 
eral other instances are chronicled.] 

What is more, the evening air in October, is 
< >f ten heavy through a surcharge of dampness 
especially along large streams and hi bot- 
tom lands. To such as can imagine this 
condition of the atmosphere, it will at once 
1 »ecome evident how much it was augmented 
immediately after a few volleys from about 
t ,vi i thousand muskets, the smoke of the con- 
flagrations, and the explosions of the powder, 
rendering objects invisible almost at arms' 
length. This is established by the testimony 
of a gallant American officer, Col : Dubois, 
(H. 183-'5),who stated that shortly after the fir- 
ing became warm, when within five paces of his 
general he could only recognize him by his 
voice. Therefore for anyone to pretend to re- 
in te what occurred within the lines of Sir 
John Johnson ( (4) xxvi. 2 and (5) xxvi. 2. 
supra) a few (15) minutes after volleys had been 



exchanged along the whole fronts is 
simply drawing upon the "imagination 
for facts." Consequently when the American 
writers say that the enemy broke and ran, it 
was simply attributing to them what was oc- 
curring within van Rensselaer's lines, where 
the officers could not restrain the rear from 
tiling over and into the front and from break- 
ing beyond the power of being rained. Doubt- 
less, as always, the regulars on both sides be- 
haved as well as circumstances permitted. Sir 
John's Indians opposed to the American Con- 
tiientals and Levies for the defence of the 
frontiers, it is very likely gave way almost at 
once. Brandt, their gallant and able leader, 
was wounded in the heel, and therefore unable 
to move about, encourage them and hold them 
up to their work. Thus crippled he had enough 
to do to get off, for if taken he well 
knew that his sh'ift would be short 
and his "despatch" speedy if not "hap- 
py." Sir John was also struck, in 
the thigh, and was charged with quittfcig the 
field. The only evidence for this is derived 
from one of his bitter personal enemies sur- 
charged with spite and desire of vengeance. 
How bitterly he felt can be easily conceived, 
when he turned upon van Rensselaer and em- 
phasized. (Stone's Brant II, 124-5, &c.) 
Colonel Stone remarks other accounts "speak 
differently" from Sammons (Brant ii. 122). 

Gen. Sir Frederic Haldimand wrote to the 
home government that Sir John " 'Bad destroy- 
ed the settlements of Schoharie and Stone 
Arabia, and laid waste a la»'ge extent of coun- 
try,' " which was most true. It was added: 

" 'He had several engagements with the 
enemy, in which he came off victorious. In 
one of them, near Stone Arabia, he killed a 
Col. Brown, a notorious and active rebel. with 
about one hundred officers and men. '" " T can- 
not finish without expressing to your Lordship 
the perfect satisfaction which lhave,from the 

teal s/:i : -f , <t,u/ <i: f : : ih; u:th ulu.i: \.\' .1:1m 

•Johnson has conducted this arduous enter- 
prise." 1 " 

Max von Eelking (II. 100-200) in his compi- 
lation of contemporaneous observations, pre- 
sents the following testimony of the judgment 
and reliability of t he superior. Gen. Haldimand, 
who reported, officially, in such flattering 
terms of the result of Sir John's expedition. 
He says of Haldimand that "he passed, ac- 
cording to English ideas, for <>»<■ of the lies! 
and most trustworthy of British generals; 
had fought with distinction during the Seven 
Years' W a r in Germany. * * :|: He was a 
man strictly upright, kind-hearted and hon 
orable. * * * Always of a character very 
formal and punctilious as to etiquette, he was 
very fastidious in his intercourse and 
did not easily make new acquaintances. * * * 
He required continual activity from his subr 
ordinates. :;: * * A Brunswick officer con- 
siders him one of the most worthy officers 
England has ever had. * * * This was 
about the character of the man to whom now 
the fate of the < 'anadas was intrusted by his 
Britannic Majesty." 

It now seems a fitting time to consider the 
number of the opposing forces engaged. 
There has been a studied attempt to appre- 
ciate those present under Sir John and to de- 
preciate those at the disposal of van 
Rensselaer. The same holds good with re- 
gard to the losses of the former: whereas 
the casualties suffered by the latter are stud- 
iously concealed. No two works agree in re- 
gard to the column led by Johnson. It has been 



estimated even as high as 1500, whereas acrit- 
ical examination of its component parts demon- 
strates that it could not have comprised much 
more than a third of this number at the out- 
set. As all Sir John's papers were lost in the 
Egyptian darkness of the night of the 19th 
October, it is necessary to fall back upon 
contemporaneous works for every detail. 

The product of this calulation exactly agrees 
with the statement embodied in the testimony 
of Colonel Harper: — "The enemy's force was 
about 400 white men and but few Indians." 
( (1) xxii. sitj)ra). The post from Albany, 
t.sth October, reported that Sir John's party 
were "said to be about 500 men come down 
the Mohawk River." (H. N. T. 122). 

When Sir John struck the Charlotte or 
Eastern Susquehanna he was joined by several 
hundred Indians. But a quarrel founded on 
jealousy — similar co such as was the curse of 
every Aggregation of Scottish Highland 
tribes, even under Montrose, Claverhouse and 
the Pretender — soon after occurred, and sev- 
eral hundreds abandoned him.* (Simm's S. 
Co., 399). 

Great stress has also been laid on his being 
provided with artillery. Close study explodes 
this phantasy likewise. That he had several 
pieces of very light artillery hardly deserving 



the name with him as far as Ohittenango 
Creek is true (Hammond's Madison Co., 656). 
Two of these he sunk intentionally in this 
Stream, or else they went to its bottom acci- 
dentally. Thence he carried on two little 4% 
pounder mortars, probably "Royals," and a 
Grasshopper 3 pounder. As our army were 
well acquainted with the improved Cohorns 
used at the siege of Petersburg, it is unneces- 
sary to explain that they were utterly 
impotent against stone buildings or even 
those constructed of heavy logs. The Co- 
horns of 1780 was just what St Leger 
reported of them in 1 777— that thev were g< tod 
for "teazing" and nothing more. Even one of 
these Sir John submerged in a marsh after his 
attempt upon the Middle Fort, now Middle- 
burg. Clinton, (157,) wrote that both were' 'con- 
cealed [abandoned] by the Loyalists on their 
route from Schoharie." 

Most likely it was an impediment. And 
nothing is afterwards mentioned of the use of 
the other. The "grasshopper" 3 pdr derived 
its name from the fact that it was not mount- 
ed upon wheels but upon iron legs. It was one 
of those almost useless little guns which were 
transported on bat-horses, just as 12 pdr 
mountain howitzers are still carried on pack 
animals. As Sir John's horses, draught and 



* The actual composition of Sir John Johnson's 
expeditionary column is well-known however often 
willfully misstated. He had Three Companies 
of his own Reeriment of "Roval Greens" or "Loyal 
New Yorkers;" one Company of German Jagers; 
one Company of British Regulars belonging to 
the 8th (Col. A. S. de Peyster's) King's Regiment 
of Foot, which performed duty by detachments 
all along the frontier from Montreal to the farth- 
est west, and in every raid and hostile movement 
—besides detachments a Companv or Platoon 
from the 20th. and (?)also from the 34thBritish In 
fantry, and a detachment— sometimes rated by 
the Americans as high as two hundred men from 
Butler's Loyalist or Tory Rangers. Sir John in his 
report of casualties mentions these all except the 
20th Regiment and no others. Figure this up, and 
take sixty at. a fair allowance for the numerical 
force of a company whien is too large an allow- 
ance basing it on the average strength of British 
regiments which had seen active service for any 
length of time on this continent, and six times sixty 
makes three hundred and sixty. plus two hundred, 
gives 'five hundred and sixty. Deduct a fair per- 
centage for the footsore and other casualties in- 
separable from such service, and it reduces his 
AVhit.es down to exactly what Colonel Harper 
(1) xxii.. supra,) slates was reported to him by 
an Indian as being at Klock's Field. 

Col. W. L. Stone (Brant II. 105) specifies three 
companies of Sir John's own Regiment of Greens; 
one Company of < lerman Jagers; a detachment of 
20H men (doubtfuJ authority cited) from Butler's 
Rangers; and one [only one] Companyof British 
Regulars. The Indian portion of this expedition 
was chiefly collected under Brant, at Tioga Point, 
on the S'usquehannab, which they ascended to 
Unadilla. Stone's language "besides Mohawks" 
is ambiguous. Sir John had few Indians left— as 
was usually the case with these savages — when 
they had "to face the music." 

Governor Clinton (Hough N. I., 1511 estimates 
Sir John's force at seven hundred and fifty picked 
troops and Indians. Very few Indians were in the 
fight of the 19th of October P. M. Other 
corroborations have already been ad- 
duced. Simm's <S. Co. 399) says that Sir John 
left Niagara with five hundred British, Royalist 
and German troops, and that he was joined by a 
large hpdy of Indians and Tories under Captain 
Brandt, on the Susquehanna, making his effective 
force "as estimated at the several forts," one 
thousand men. By crediting this estimate to the 
several forts who were "panicky," lenders its 
correctness unworthy of acceptance. He then 



goes on to say that several hundred Indians de- 
serted. 

'Che strength of Regiments varied from three 
hundred and under to six hundred and fifty. It 
is well known that some American regi- 
ments scarcely rose above one hundred 
rank and file. It is almost unanimously 
conceded that Harkheimer had at least four regi- 
ments — if not five— the wholi mprising only 

eight or nine hundred men at Oriskajvy. This 
does nol include Volunteers, Indians, &c, &c. 

General van Rensselaer, judging from the test i 
mony given before the Court of Enquiry, and his 
own letters, Simms (425 &c.,) had seven to nine 
hundred militia when he reached Schnectady. It 
i ! very hard to calculate Ins ultimate aggregate 
of militia. He had at first Ins own Claverack 
Brigade. TheCitypf Albany Militia and some 
other Regiments had preceded him. (10) & (11.) 
xxvi#i.) Col: Van Alstyne's Regiment joined him 
l>\ another route (Ibid (12) ). How did Col: Cuy- 
ler's Albany Regt (Ibid (Pi) ) come up? Col: Clyde 
reinforced him with the Canajoharie District Regi 
ment (Ibid (8) t (Tryon Co: for military purposes 
was divided into Districts each of which furnished 
i'ts Quote), likewise (Simms S. Co 425) "the Scho- 
harie militia" "near Fort Hunter." This dissec- 
tion might be followed out further to magnify the 
American force and show against what tremen- 
dous odds Sir John presented an undaunted front, 
and what numbers he shocked, repulsed and 
foiled. He was afterwards joined by the Conti- 
nental Infantry under Colonel Morgan Lewis; the 
New York gwasi-regulars or Levies, three or four 
hundred, under Colonel Dubois: McKean's volun- 
teers, sixty; the Indians under Colonel Louis, six- 
ty; John Ostrom, a soldier present, adds (Simm's S 
Co 424) 200 Oneida Indians under Col: Harper, the 
Artillery and the Horse. The militia of Albany- 
county were organized into seventeen regiments, 
of Charlotte Co: into one; of Tryon Co: into five: 
besides these there were other troops at hand 
under different names and peculiarities 
of service. It is certain that all the 
militia cf Albany, Charlotte and Tryon counties 
and every ether organization that were accessible 
were hurried to meet Sir John; and severe Clinton 
was not the man to brook shirking. Twenty- 
three regiments of militia must have produced 
twenty-four hundred men, — a ridiculously small 
figure. Add the other troops known to be with 
van Rensselaer and he faced the Loyal leader 
with five or six times as many as the latter had; 
or else the Claverack Brigadier had with him 
only a startling redundancy of field officers and a 
disgraceful deficiency of rank and file. 



beef cattle, appear to have been stampeded i>n 
bhe confusion of the intense darkness, almost 
everything which was not upon his soldiers' 
persons or had not been sent forward when he 
' l setUed"at Klock's Field to check pursuit, 
had to be left when he drew off. The darkness 
of the night, as stated, was intensified by the 
powder smoke and smoke of burning buildings, 
and tjfas bottom-fog which rilled the whole 
valley. Under such circumstances small ob- 
j >cts could not be recovered in the hurry of 
a march. 

The Americans made a great flourish over the 
capture of Sir John's artillery. The original 
report was comparatively lengthy, but 
simply covered the little "grasshop- 
per," fifty-three rounds of ammunition, 
and a few necessary implements and 
e jui.pments for a piece, the whole sus- < 
c>v)tible of transport on two pack-saddles. 
Most probably the bat-horses were shot or dis- ! 
abled in the melee. ( (9) xxviii. supra.) 

It is even more difficult to arrive at van ] 
Rensselaer's numbers. The lowest figure 
when at Schenectady is 700. This perhaps < 
indicated his own Cliveraek (now Columbia 
Co:) Brigade. He received several accessions 
of force, Tryon and Albany county militia ;the 
different colonels and their regiments are espe- 
cially mentioned-besides the gwasi-regular com- j 
mand— 300 or 400 (Hough 150)— of Colonel Du- 
bois' Levies raised and expressly maintained 
Por the defence of theN. Y. northern frontier; 
Capt. M'Kean's 80 Independent Volunteers; 60 
to 100 Indians, Oneida warriors, under Colonel 
Louis; a detachment of ragular Infantry un- 
der Colonel Morgan Lewis, who led the 
advance (B. II., 120); a company or detach- 
ment of artillery with two pdrs.; ( (2) 
x\-vi. 2) and a body of horsemen. (See supra 
(3) xxvi. 2.) 

Col. Stone, writing previous to 1838, says: 
"thecommand of G-an. Van Rensselaer num- 
bered about 1500" — a force in every way su- 
perior to that of the enemv. It is very prob- 
able that he had over 2000, if not many more 
than this. Stone adds (Brant, II., 119): "Sir 
John's troops, moreover, were exhausted by 
forced marches, active service, and heavy 
knapsacks, while those of Van Rensselaer 
were fresh in the field." Sir John's troops 
had good reason to be exhausted. Besides 
their march from Canaseraga, 150 miles, they 
had been moving, destroying, and fighting, 
constantly, for three or four days, covering in 
this exhaustive work a distance of over 75 
(26 m. straight) miles in the Mohawk VaPley 
alone (Hough, 152). On the very day of the main 
engagement they had wasted the whole dis- 
trict of Stone Arabia, destroyed Brown's com- 
mand in a spirited attempt to hold the invad- 
ers, and actually advanced to meet van Rens- 
selaer by the light of the conflagrations they 
kindled as they marched along. Each British 
and Loyal soldier carried«ighty rounds of am- 
munition, which, together with his heavy arms. 
equipments, rations and plunder, must have 
weighed one hundred pounds and upwards per 
man. Van Rensselaer's militia complained of 
fatigue; but when did this sort of troops ever 
march even the shortest testing distance with- 
out grumbling? 

The Americans figured out Sir John's loss at 
9 killed. 7 wounded, and 53 missing. His re- 
port to General Haldimand states that 
throughout his whole expedition he only lost 
in killed. Whites and Indians, 9; wounded, 7; 
and missing 48, which must have included the 
wounded who had to be abandoned; and de- 



sertions 3: the last item is the most remark- 
able in its insignificance. (H. N. I., L36). 

How the troops on either side were drawn 
up for the fight appears to have been pretty 
well settled, for there was still light enough 
to make this out if no more. Sir John's line 
extended from the river to the orchard near. 
Klock's house. His Rangers — Loyalists — were 
on the right, with their right on the bank of the 
Mohawk. His regular troops stood in column 
hi the centre on the Flats. Brant's Indians and 
the Hesse-Hanau Riflemen or Jajjers were 
on the left, in echelon, in advance of the rest 
abaut one hundred and fifty yards, in 
the Orchard. Van Rensselaer's forces were 
disposed; Colonel Dubois with the Levies 
quasi-regulars on the right. Whites and 
Indians constituting the central column, and 
the Albany Militia on the left. (Simms S. Co: 
430.) Not a single witness shows where the 
Continentals, Artillerymen and the Horsemen 
took position. As for the two 9 pdr fieldpieces, 
they were left behind, stuck in the mud. It 
was a tohu-bohu. The regulars on both sides 
behaved well as they always do. With the 
first shots the militia began to fire — Cuyler's 
Regt. 400 yards away from the enemy— the 
rear rank over and into those in front, 251 1 to 
300 yards in advance (192), then broke; 
all was confusion. It does not appear that 
the American Indians accomplished anything. 
Colonel Dubois' New York Levies ran out 
Brant's Indians and got in the rear of Sir 
John's line, and then there was an end of 
the matter. (Simms' S. Co. 429-'30.) It had 
become so dark from various causes, that, 
to use a common expression, "a man could 
not see his hand before his face." 

Van Rensselaer had now enough to do to 
keep the majority of his troops together, and 
retreated from one and a half to three miles 
to a cleared hill where he was enabled to re- 
store some order. The stories of the disorder 
within Sir John's lines, except as regarded the 
Indians, are all founded on unreliable data: 
nothing is known. When his antagonist fell 
back he waited apparently until the moon 
rose, and then (or previously) forded the river 
(just above Nathan Christie's — (Simms, 430) 
and commenced his retreat which he was per- 
mitted to continue unmolested. He had 
fought a Cumberland Church Fight to check 
pursuit, and there was no Humphreys present 
to renew it and press on to an Appomattox 
Court House. He had accomplished his task ; 
he had completed the work of des- 
truction in fiie Schoharie and Mohawk 
valleys There was nothing more to 
be wasted Colonel Stone sums it up 
thus (Brandt, 11—124): "By this third and 
most formidable irruption into the Mohawk 
country during the season. Sir John had com- 
pleted its entire destruction above Schenectady 
— the principal settlement above the Little Fa lis 
having been sacked and burned two years be- 
fore." French observed that these incur- 
sions left "the remaining citizens, stripped of 
almost everything except the soil. " 

["The forces of Col. [Sir John] Johnson, a 
part of which had crossed the river near 
Caughnawaga, destroyed all the Whig prop- 
erty, not only on the south, but on the north 
side, from Fort Hunter to the [Anthony's N. 
T. 60.] Nose: [some 23 to 25 m.] and in several 
instances where dwellings had been burned by 
the Indians under his command in May [1780] 
and temporary ones rebuilt, they were also 
consumed. * * * After Brown fell, the 
enemy, scattered in small bodies, were to be 



seen in every direction plundering and burn- 
ing the settlements in Stone Arabia. In the 
afternoon Gen. van Rensselaer, after being 
warmly censured for his delay by Col. Har- 
per and several other officers, crossed the river 
at Fort Plain, and began the pursuit in earn- 
est. The enemy were overtaken [awaited 
him] on the side of the river above St. 
Johnsville, near a stockade and block- 
house at Klock's, just before night, 
and a smart brush took place between 
the British troops and the Americans 
under Col. Duboise; in which, several on each 
side were killed or wounded. Johnson was 
compelled to retreat to a peninsula in the 
river, where he encamped with his men much 
wearied. His situation was such that he 
could have been taken with ease. Col. Du- 
boise, with a body of Levies, took a station 
above him to prevent his proceeding up the 
river; Gen. van Rensselaer, with the main 
army, below: while Col. Harper, with the 
Oneida Indians, gained a position on the south 
side of the river, nearly opposite. [Why did 
they not guard the Ford by which Sir j 
John crossed; They were afraid of him and I 
glad to let him go if he only would go away.] \ 
The general gave express orders that the attack 
should be renewed by the troops under his own j 
immediate command, at the rising of the [fullQ 
[between 10 and 11 P. M. (?) (H. N. I. 55.) ] i 
moon, some hour in the night. Instead, how- 
ever, of encamping on the ground from which 
the enemy had been driven, as a brave officer 
would have done, he fell back down the river 
and encamped three miles distant. The 
troops under Duboise and Harper could hard- 
ly be restrained from commencing the at- 
tack long before the moon arose; but 
when it did, they waited with almost 
breathless anxiety to hear the rattle 
of vaii Rensselaer's musketry. The 
enemy, who encamped on lands owned by the 
late Judge Jacob G. Klock, spiked their can- 
non [the diminutive 3 pdr grasshopper was all 
they had] which was there abandoned ; and 
soon after the moon appeared, began to move 
forward to aforditiQ place just above the resi- 
dence of Nathan Christie, and not far from 
their encampment. Many were the "denuncia- 
tions made by the men under Duboise and 
Harper against van Rensselaer, when they 
found he did not begin the attack, and had 
given strict orders that their commanders 
should not. They openly stigmatised the gen- 
eral as a coward and traitor; but when 
several hours had elapsed, and he had not yet 
made his appearance, a murmur of discontent 
pervaded all. Harper and Duboise were com- 
pelled to see the troops under John- 
son and Brant ford the river, 
and pass off ■unmolested, or disobey the 
orders of their commander, when they could, 
unaided, have given them most advanta- 
geous battle. Had those brave colonels, at the 
moment the enemy were in the river, taken 
the responsibility of disobeying their com- 
mander as Murphy had done three days be- 
fore, and commenced the attack in front and 
rear, the consequences must have been very 
fatal to the retreating army, and the death of 
Col. Brown and his men promptly revenged. 
— Jacob Beeker,a Schoharie militia man. 428- 
430 Jeptha R. Simms' "History of Schoharie 
Co:" 1845.] 

The most curious thing in this connection 
is the part played by the fiery Governor Clin- 
ton. Colonel Stone expressly stated, in 1838, 
that he was with General van Rensselaer a 



few hours before the fight, dined with him at 
Fort Plain, and remained at the Fort when 
van Rensselaer marched out to the fight. In 
his, or his son and namesake's, "Border Wars," 
II— 122, this statement is repeated. Clinton, 
in one of his letters, dated 30th October, 
does not make the matter clear. He says 
(H. 151) "On receiving this intelligence [the 
movements of the British] I immediately 
moved up the river, in hopes of being able to 
gain their front, etc. ;" In describing the en- 
gagement he says, "the night came on too 
soon fortes;" and then afterwards he men- 
tions "the morning after the action, I arrived 
with the militia under my immediate com- 
mand." This does not disprove Stone's ac- 
count. Aid-Major Lansing, testified before 
the court-martial that the Governor took 
command on the morning of the 21st. It Is 
l ot likely that Governor Clinton would have 
found it pleasant to fall into hands of Sir 
John, and Sir John would have been in 
a decidedly disagreeable position if the 
Governor could have laid hands upon 
him. There was this difference, however; 
Sir John was in the fight, (Colonel Du- 
bois wrote 11 A. M., the day after the fight, 
(Hough, N. I. 118). Prisoners say Sir John 
was wounded through the thigh,) which 
he might have avoided; and the Governor 
might have been (had he "hankered" for the 
opportunity), and was not. Anyone who will 
consider the matter dispassionately will per- 
ceive that now that the whole country was 
aroused and all the able-bodied males, regulars 
and militia, concentrating upon him, Sir John 
had simply to look to the safety of his com- 
mand. He retreated by a route parallel to the 
Mohawk River and to the south of it, passed 
the Oneida Castle on the creek of the same 
name, the present boundary between Madison 
and Oneida counties, and made for Cana- 
seraga where he had left his bateaux: Mean- 
while van Rensselaer had despatched an 
express to Fort Schuyler or Stanwix, 
now Rome, ordering Captain Vrooman with 
a strong detachment from the garri- 
son to push on ahead as quickly as 
possible and destroy Sir John's little flotilla : 
A deserter frustrated Burgoyne's last and 
best chance to escape. Two Oneida Indians, 
always unreliable in this war, revealed the 
approach of Sir John and by alarming saved 
the forts in the Schoharie valley. And now 
another such chance enabled Sir John to save 
his boats and punish the attempt made to de- 
stroy them. One of Captain Vrooman's men 
fell sick or pretended to fall sick at Oneida 
Castle (Hist. Madison, 050, &c.) and was left 
behind. Soon after, Sir John arrived, and 
learned, from the invalid, the whole plan. 
Thereupon he sent forward Brant and his In- 
dians with a detachment of Butler's Rangers, 
who came upon Vrooman's detachment tak- 
ing their mid-day meal, and "gobbled" the 
whole party. Not a shot was fired; and Cap- 
tain Vrooman and his men were carried off 
prisoners in the very boats they were dis- 
patched to destroy. 

If any reader supposes that this invasion of 
Sir John J ohnson's was a simple predatory 
expedition, he has been kept in ignorance of 
the te'uth through the misrepresentations of 
American writers. It was their purpose to 
malign Sir John, and they have admirably 
succeeded in doing so. Sir John Johnson's 
expedition was a part of a grand strategic 
plan, based upon the topography of the coun- 
try which rendered certain lines of operatien 



inevitable. Ever skice the English built n fort 
at Oswego, as a menace t<> the French then 
in possession of Canada, this port and 
Niagara wore bases for hostile move- 
ments againsl Canada. Pitt's great plan. 
the conquest of New France in 1759, contem- 
plated atriple attack: down Lake Champlain, 
across from Oswego, and up the St. Law- 
rence. The Burgoyne campaign in 17 IT, was 
predicated i >n t lie 'same idea: Burgoyne up 
Champlain, St. Leger from Oswego down the 
Mohawk, and HoWeup theHndson. Clinton 
plan forthe fall of 1780, was almost identical: 
although everything hinged on the success of 
Arnold's treason and his delivering up West 
Point, Clinton himself was to play the part 
Howeshould have done and ascend the Hud- 
son. Colonel Carleton was to imitate Bur- 
goyne on a smaller scale and move up Cham- 
plain to attract attention in that direction: 
and Sir John was to lepeattne St. Leger move- 
ment of 177;, and invade the Mohawk val- 
ley. Arnold's failure frustrated Clinton's 
movement. Carleton at best was to 
demonstrate because the ambiguity (or con- 
sistent treason) of Veimetit rendered a more 
numerous column unnecessary. As it was he 
penetrated to the Hudson and took Fort 
Anne. Haldimand's nervousness about a 
French attack upon Canada, made him timid 
about detaching a sufficient force with Sir 
John. Moreover the British regulars were 
very unwilling to accompany this bold parti- 
san^ whose energy insured enormous hard- 
ship, labor, and suffering, to his followers, to 
which regulars, more particularly German 
mercenaries were especially averse. Von 
Eelking informs lis of this, and furthermore 
that a terrible mutiny came very near break- 
ing out among the British troops under John- 
son in the succeeding June, when Haldimand 
proposed to send Sir John on another expedi- 
tion against Pittsburg. The plan of the 
mutineers (Von. E. 1L, lit?) was to fall 
upon the British officers in their quarters 
and murder them all. The complot was dis- 
covered, but it was politic to hush the whole 
matter up, which was accordingly done. 
Doubtless there was hanging and shooting and 
punishment enough, but it was inflicted 
quietly. These were the reasons that the in- 
vasion which was to have been headed by 
Sir John Johnson was converted into a de- 
structive raid, and this explains why Sir 
John was o weak-handed that he could not 
dispose of \.\\ Rensselaer on Klock's 
Field as completely as he annihilated the 
gallant Brown in Stone Arabia. 

Finally todivest Sir John Johnson's expedi- 
tion of the character of a mere raid, it is only 
necessary tocompare some dates. Arnold's 
negotiations with Sir Henry Clinton, came to a 
head about the middle of September. It was 
not settled until the 21st-22nd of that month. 
It is not consistent with probability that Hal- 
dimand in Canada was [gnoraut that a com 
bined movement was contemplated. To just- 
ify this conclusion von Eelking states (II. 195) 
that three expeditions, with distant objectives, 
started from Quebec abi >ut the "middle i »f Sep- 
tember," the very time when Clinton and Ar- 
nold were concluding their bargain: the first 
under Sir John Johnson, into the Schoharie 

and Mohawk vallies: the ml under Major 

Carleton, which took Forts Anne and George, 
towards Albany; and the third under Colonel 
Carleton reversing the direction of the route 
followed by Arnold in 17 7~>. 



LBJa'12 



The time necessary to bring Sir John into 
Middle New York, making due allowances for 
obstacles, was about coincident with the date 
calculated for the surrender of "West Point. 
Arnold made his escape on the 25th of Sep- 
tember. Andre was arrested on the 
33rd of September, and was execu- 
ted on the 2nd of Cetober fol- 
lowing. Major Carleton came up Lake 
Champlain and appeared before Fort Ann 
on the 10th of October (H. N. I.. 43), Major 
Houghton (Ibid 146) simultaneously fell upon 
the upper settlements of the Connecticut \ al- 
ley ; and Major Munro, a Loyalist, started 
with the intention— it is believed — of surpris- 
ing Schenectady. but for reasons now unknown 
stopped short at Ballstoc, attacked this si-ttlt 
meiit on the midnight of the 16th of < >ctober, 
and then retired carrying oil' a number of 
prisoners. Such a coincidence of concentrat- 
ing attacks from four or five different quar- 
ters by as many- different routes, could not 
have been the result of accident. Cir- 
cumstances indicate that Sir Henry Clin- 
ton was first to move in force upon 
West Point, and make himself master 
of it through the treasonable dispositions of 
Arnold. This would have rivetted the atten- 
tion of the whole country. Troops would have 
been hurried from all quarters towards the 
Highlands, and the whole territory around 
Albany denuded of defenders. Thus it 
was expected that Sir John would 
have solved the problem which St. Leger 
failed to do in 1777. Meanwhile, the Carle* 
tons, certain of the neutrality of Vermont,* 
whose hostilities had been so effective, in 1777, 
would have captured all the posts 
on the Upper Hudson. In thi», way 
the great plan which failed in 17 7 7, was to 
be accomplished in 1780. Thousands of tim- 
id Loyalists would have sprung to arms to 
support Sir John and Clinton, and the sev- 
erance of the Eastern from the Middle States. 
completed and perfect communication estab- 
lished between New York ami Montreal. It 
would have taken but very little time for Clin- 
ton to double his force from Loyal elements 
along the whole course of the Hudson : as can 
be demonstrated from records, admissions 
and letters of the times. The majority of the 
people weretired of the war. and even Wash- 
ington despaired. < In the 17th < let., ! r80, Gov. 
Clinton wrote to en. Washington: "This en- 
terprise of the enemy [Sir John Johnson] is 
probably the effect of Arnold's treason." On 
bhe21stof the same month (en. Washington 
addressing the President of the Continental 
Congress, wrote: ■■ // is thought, and per 
haps not without foundation, that this in- 
cursion was made [by Snt John Johnson] 
it])<j,i the supposition thai Arnold's treachery 
luiil succeeded." 

If Arnold's treason had not been discovered 
in time, the name of Sir John Johnson might 
stand to day in history in the same class beside 
that of Wolfe, instead .if being branded as it 
has be u by virulence. . in many 

cases direct falsehood. 

"Success is the test ot 'merit." said the unfor- 
tunate Rebel General Albert S\ dnej Johnston; 
— •'a hard rule," he added, ••'out a just, one." It 
is both hitrrl and r.v.iisi . and w ere courage, 
merit, self devotion and exposure to suffering 
and peril the test, and ot success, there are 
few men who would stand higher to-day i*\ 
military annals than the vilified Sir John 
Johnson. 






